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THE WORKERS’ LIBRARY 








HE WORKERS’ LIBRARY is a library in the making, em- 
bracing subjects and viewpoints developing out of the 
political and economic conditions since the World War and the 
Russian Revolution. Two cloth bound books, of which this 
volume is the second, the first being Trotsky’s “Dictatorship vs. 
Democracy,” and two pamphlets, “For a Labor Party” and “The 
American Foreign-Born Workers”, comprise the volumes so far 
published. We wish also to recommend the following list as of 
supreme importance to workers who wish to educate themselves 
so as to be able to take a progressive position in the class struggle. 


Cloth-Bound Books 


Dictatorship vs. Democracy, Leon Trotsky.............000 $1.00 
Ancient Society, Lewis. H. Morgan... .....05..0..5 525 ene 1.50 
Critique of Political Economy, Karl Marx..............6. 125 
Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History, 

Antonio: Labriola i 5.2% esau ba siotie tlle als alae eee Rak by 
History of the U. S. Supreme Court, Gustavus Myers........ 2.50 
Proletcult, Eden and Cedar’ Paulin. 2202 nn clone as 03 Se 1.50 
Philosophical Essays, Joseph Dietzgen............:..+5008 1.50 
Landmarks of Scientific Socialism, Friedrich Engels........ LZ 
Savage Survivals in Higher Peoples, J. Howard Moore...... 1:25 


Pamphlets 


The American Foreign-Born Workers, C. S. Ware 

Class Struggles in America, A. M. Simons 

For a Labor Party, John Pepper 

The A. B. C. of Communism, Bucharin 

Bankruptcy of the American Labor Movement, Wm. Z. Foster 
The Railroaders’ Next Step—Amalgamation, Wm. Z. Foster 
The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels 

The Communist Program, Bucharin 


The American Empire, Scott Nearing 
Imperialism, Lenin 


Address: 
Literature Department 


Workers Party or AMERICA 
799 Broadway, New York City. 





WORKERS PARTY LIBRARY, Vol. 2 


THE GOVERNMENT— 
STRIKEBREAKER 


A Study of the Role of the Government 


in the Recent Industrial Crisis 


By JAY LOVESTONE 





Published May 1, 1923 
By the 
WORKERS PARTY OF AMERICA 
New York City 








Copyright, 1923, 
By the Workers Party or AMERICA 


Published May, 1923 9 cf 


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FOREWORD 


| Bh powerful forces making for a sharpening of the class 

struggle have been greatly intensified and brought into 
bold relief by the World War. The Great War lent considerable 
impetus to the development of a highly centralized Government 
and a homogeneous working class in America. 

This was ably pointed out for the first time by John Pepper, 
in his pamphlet, “For a Labor Party—Recent Revolutionary 
Changes in American Politics.” 

That these tendencies are developing at a rapid pace is 
borne out by an analysis of the recent industrial crisis and the 
role of the Government therein. The unity between the Stock 
Exchange in Wall Street and the White House in Washington 
is becoming ever more close and ever more open. On April 17, 
1923, Judge Elbert H. Gary, Chief Executive of the United 
States Steel Corporation, scored the present Immigration Law 
and made an urgent plea for a superabundance of cheap labor 
power. The next day, President Harding, Chief Executive of the 
United States Government, echoed the Steel Baron’s opinions. 

How rapidly this centralized Governmental power of op- 
pressing the workers is growing! In 1919, the Government 
secured a sweeping injunction for the coal magnates on the basis 
of the Lever Act. In 1922 the Government, without the aid of 
even a formal law, secured a far more drastic injunction for 
the railway magnates. By the provisions of the McCumber- 
Fordney Tariff Act, the President is given the power to regulate 
tariff rates in utter violation of the Constitution. And by its 
decisions invalidating the Minimum Wage Law of the District 
of Columbia, the U. $. Supreme Court has decreed that the full 
military and judiciary powers of the Government shall be em- 

+) 


578596 


6 FOREWORD 


ployed for the legalization and perpetuation of starvation wages. 

What is more, the capitalists are now preparing a new drive 
against the workers. The employers are organizing to launch 
a fiercer Open Shop Drive. This struggle promises to be the 
main issue of the 1924 Election. Already Strikebreaker-General 
Daugherty and Brigadier-General Dawes have dedicated the 
Republican Party to the Open Shop movement. The workers 
are facing a crisis. They must act and act quickly. They must 
repel the new capitalist onslaught. The workers must do more 
than that. The workers must so organize themselves as to be 
able to turn their campaign of defense into a successful offensive 
that will shell the employing class out of its powerful political 
and industrial entrenchments. 

Too long have the militants in the American labor move- 
ment turned to other countries for their lessons and inspiration. 
Too long have the militants in the American labor movement 
neglected the struggles of their own working class. In the in- 
vestigation of our recent industrial crisis and the role of the 
Government therein, in the study of the class conflicts, and in 
the analysis of the conditions under which the giant industrial 
battles were fought, I have put my conclusions completely at the 
mercy of the facts. My policy was to resort to official authori- 
tative documents and figures, and to rely on the collation and 
regimentation of this data for establishing the conclusions. 

The object of this study is to present to the American 
workers the story of their recent heroic battles against employing 
class oppression in such a manner as to aid them in their new 
struggles for freedom. To the extent that this effort of mine 
helps the working class in achieving complete liberation from 
capitalist tyranny and exploitation, to that extent will the author 
consider his purpose attained. 


Jay LOvESTONE. 
New York, May 1, 1923. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


i 


II. 


iil. 


IV. 


VI. 


THE GRAND OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE WORKERS.... 
The Government’s Labor Policy During the War. “Wait Till 
the War Is Over.” The Reversion to Normalcy. The Gov- 
ernment in Its True Role. The Government Organizes 
Wholesale Raids on the Workers. The Open Shop Drive. 
Object of the Drive. The Open Shoppers at Work. Results. 


HEM GREAT DEPRESSION. ore stauie} sv ciste Sl aecres Heieses 
Depression Sets In. Deflation and Unemployment. Bitter- 
ness of the Struggle. Employers’ Profits in Depression. The 
Workers Lose. The Farmers and Soldiers Are Hard Hit. 
Wage Cuts Very Painful. Standards of Living. Readjust- 
ment Strikes of 1921. Capitalists United—Workers Divided. 


THE TExTILE WorKERS REVOLT...... mers 2 Lien 
Issues of the Strike. The Workers—Slaves. Their Living 
Conditions. The Workers Revolt. The Courts. The Military 
Forces. Burns Detective Agency Takes a Hand. Strike 
Settlements. The Unions and the Strike. Its Significance. 


THe Miners on StrRIKE—AN Army AT War....... 
Clearing the Ground. Breaking the Agreement. On the 
Eve of the Struggle. The Strike Begins. Another Com- 
parison. Wages and Working Conditions. Strike in Full 
Swing. Strike Deadly Effective. The Government Runs 
to the Rescue of the Operators. Harding Dons the Strike- 
breaker’s Uniform. Profiteering Rampant. Negotiating an 
Armed Truce. Significance of Strike. Bureaucratic Leaders 
Betray the Workers. Conclusion. 


Hrerrin—A Lesson 1n AMERICAN Ciass War...... 
Facts of the Case. Chorus of Revenge. The Indictments. 
A Challenge to Unionism. Brutal Class Justice. Lessons 
of the Conflict. 


THE Raitway SHop Crarts Faby in LINE........ 
Some Railroad History. Railroad Labor Board Steps In. 
The Shop Crafts Revolt. Railways Grow Richer and Work- 
ers Grow Poorer. Wages and Working Conditions. Strike 
Grips the Country. Service Crippled and Profits Cut. 
Government Rallies to the Open Shop Drive. Preparing the 
Settlements. Big Four Attempt Peace. Results of the Strike. 


7 


PAGE 


9 


27 


50 


74, 


115 


134 


& 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 


Vi. 


Vili. 


IX. 


XG 


XII. 


XIII. 


XIV. 


THE Courts AND THE WORKERS......... «i. aaa 
Role of Courts in Class Conflict. Courts Serve: the Rich. 
Courts Are Against the Workers. Supreme Court Leads the 
Attack on the Workers. Some Recent Decisions—The 
Duplex Case; The American Steel Foundries Case; Truax 
y. Corrigan; The Coronado Decision; Child Labor Decision. 


“GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION”..........0eeeeeees 214 
Historical Background. Our First Injunctions. The Injunc- 

tion As a Weapon in Class Warfare. Daugherty Injunction. 
Provisions of the Injunction. Ravages of the Injunction. 
Capitalists Are Desperate. Conclusion. 


THE ARMY AND THE WORKERS.........ececeeeees 232 
Against the Labor Organizations. In the Textile Strike. 

In Miners’ Strike. In the Railway Strike. Major General 
Harbord States Employers’ Policy. 


THE EMPLOYERS ASSOCIATIONS........j000+eeeeee 248 
Main Purpose of These Organizations. Sriashine the Unions. 
The Open Shop in Action — A Capitalist Dictatorship. 
Breaking the Railway Strike. Wield Tremendous Power. 


THE Press Does :I1s “Birr. 1.5, \ sistemas hes « 274 
The Press—A Servant of the Raplogie lace Preparing 
the Grand Offensive. Press Welcomes Labor Treason. 
Preaches Employing Class Solidarity at Herrin. In the 
Textile Strike. Mining and Railway Strikes. Undermining 
the Railway Strike. Workers Must Have Their Own Press. 


AmeErRIcAN DEmocracy—A Capitatist DictatorsHip 307 
The Capitalist State. In the United States. Some History. 
Our Holy Constitution. An Underground Convention. The 
Venerable “Fathers”. Our Constitution Against the Masses. 
The Aristocracy of the Robe. Checks and Balances. The 
Committee System. Our Cabinet System. Our Party System. 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES AND THE OuTLOOK 329 
Political Radicalization of the Working Masses. The 1922 
Elections. The Trend Toward a Labor Party. Industrial 
Radicalization. The General Strike Resolution. Defending 
the Communist Workers. The Printers’ and the Maintenance 
of Way Workers’ Conventions. The Sweep of Amalgama- 
tion. The Trade Union Educational League Conference. 

The Capitalists Unite. The Gigantic Mergers. Stock 
Dividends Declared En Masse. The Government Is Prepar- 
ing. New Struggles Ahead. 


CONCLUSION 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


CHAPTER I. 


THE GRAND OFFENSIVE AGAINST 
THE WORKERS 


The Government's Labor Policy During the War. 
(y® participation in the World War had a beneficial effect on 


the trade unions. In the course of the war the membership 
of the American Federation of Labor doubled. The railway 
unions especially made great gains. They won a foothold on 
many systems which had previously refused to deal with them. 
In this phenomenal rise the organizations of the unskilled work- 
ers grew at a particularly rapid pace. The membership of the 
United Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees and Rail- 
way Shop Laborers rose to 325,000 in 1919. In 1920 the mem- 
bership of the International Seamen’s Union totalled 115,000. 
Many other industries that had previously successfully resisted 
unionization became strongly organized. 

The Government recognized the utter impossibility of winning 
the war without an effective mobilization of the labor forces. 
This knowledge on the part of the Government was in a large 
measure responsible for many gains made by the unions. Formal 
invitation to assure the accomplishment of this task was extended 
by the Government to the Railway Brotherhoods, the American 
Federation of Labor and many other labor bodies. This policy 
of the National Government was clearly expressed by the War 
Labor Board: 

9 


10 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“The right of workers to organize in trade unions 
and to bargain collectively thru chosen representa- 
tives is recognized and affirmed. This right shall not 
be denied, abridged, or interfered with by the em- 
ployers in any manner whatsoever.”?) 


Speedy, unrestricted output in industry is today indispensable 
to a nation at war if it is to be saved from defeat. The Govern- 
ment found it easier to achieve this output by dealing with or- 
ganized workers who were directed and controlled by a conser- 
vative or reactionary leadership than by trusting to the undi- 
rected whims and wishes of a dissatisfied, unorganized mass of 
workers. The government was compelled by the sheer neces- 
sity of avoiding disaster during the war, to adopt this policy 
towards the unions. 

Besides, the successful prosecution of the war required 
Burgfrieden—class peace. When the United States entered the 
war the country was in the throes of great industrial unrest. In 
1916 and 1917 there were reported by the Department of Labor 
8,239 strikes and lockouts.2) The year 1917 was a record 
year of 4,324 strikes reported by the Department of Labor.) 
Contentment at home is also a condition prerequisite for attain- 
ing the end to which the Government subdued everything else 
—-victory in war. The Government was therefore compelled by 
political as well as economic conditions to adopt at least a seem- 
ingly non-hostile attitude towards the labor unions. 


“Wait Till the War Is Over.” 


The more conscious and far-sighted representatives of the 
capitalists, their political leaders and skilled diplomats saw in 


1) Report of the Secretary of the National War Labor Board 1919, 
P2523: 

2) Monthly Labor Review—June 1920, Vol. 10, No. 6, page 204, 

3) Monthly Labor Review—May 1922, page 181. 


THE GRAND OFFENSIVE 1] 


the working-class revolution in Russia and the flames of war a 
menace to the whole capitalist fabric of exploitation and op- 
pression. These spokesmen of the employing class saw the need 
of subjecting everything else to the one end of a victory of Al- 
lied Imperialism—an end in which they could find their only 
hope for securing their system. In the interest of this greater 
aim, some ground was temporarily yielded to the workers. 


But the American capitalists only grudgingly and resentfully 
attuned themselves to this condition. They were whetting their 
knives for more blood. In the powerful conclaves of Wealth 
and Privilege the slogan was: “Wait Till the War Is Over.” The 
capitalists were marshalling their forces for the “grand offens- 
ive” against the working class. 


This campaign to crush the workers was somewhat delayed 
by the continuation of the war prosperity. But the capitalists 
lost no time.. Their Government, their press, and their detective 
agencies, were busily preparing the ground for a “fight to the 
finish.” 


The Reversion to Normalcy 


The declaration of the Armistice was a signal for an in- 
tensified labor struggle in the United States. For two years 
following the cessation of hostilities, America grappled with the 
problems of readjusting its machinery of production and ex- 
change to a peace basis. This readjustment has not yet been 
completed; if it ever will be. 


By the fall of 1920 we were well on our way to a peace 
basis. And with the return to “normalcy” the economic crisis 
in which America found itself on the eve of the World War 
gripped the United States more deadly than ever. The great 
depression began in the latter months of 1920. The year 1921 
was the worst the United States had known. 


12 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


But the reversion to “normalcy” also brought with it the 
greatest industrial crisis in our history—the overwhelming strike 
wave in 1922. Never before had the country witnessed such bit- 
ter class conflicts. ‘Textile workers, soft stone cutters, granite 
cutters, miners and railwaymen were the vanguard of the heroic 
army of resistance to the employers’ wage-cutting and union- 
smashing offensive. Never before in our industrial history 
have there been such large numbers on strike and never before 
have the workers remained out for such long periods. Out- 
wardly, these and the many other strikes appear only as disputes 
over wages or hours of labor. Fundamentally, the strikes of 
1922 were far more significant. They were a revolt against the 
powerful campaign waged by the captains of finance and industry 
to uproot every vestige of working-class organization. The strikers 
fought these battles primarily to uphold these organizations which 
they had built up thru years of painful struggle. 


The Government in Its True Role 


Many workers maintain that the Government is the cen- 
tralized, directing organ of capitalist oppression—the executive 
committee of the employing class. The history of the “grand 
offensive” against the workers, the great Open-Shop drive of 1920 
completely bears out this truth. By means of its policy of 
repression in the Steel and Mine Strikes of 1919 and the vicious 
“Red Raids” of 1920 the Government prepared the ground for 
the country-wide attack on the working class. 


In the Steel Strike troops were freely put at the disposal of 
the mill owners. Complete denial of the freedom of speech and 
assembly followed. Police brutality, Black Cossack terrorism, 
assaults and arrests were the order of the day.*) In the Pitts- 
burgh district meetings were prohibited as soon as the organiza- 


4) Public Opinion and the Steel Strike, Pages 163 to 220. 


THE GRAND OFFENSIVE 13 


tion campaign opened. The sheriff of Clairton ordered on Sep- 
tember 21st that “there should not be any meetings of any kind 
anywhere.”®) That the object of this campaign of terrorism 
was to break up the campaign of unionization was evident. Apro- 
pos of this situation the Department of Labor plainly said: 


“This denial of free speech and free assemblage 
had an undeniable influence on the strike. In Duquesne, 
for example, where meetings were prohibited, approxi- 
mately 50% of the men were reported to be organized. 
In Cleveland and Lackawanna, where the men were al- 
lowed to meet, approximately 80% were reported to be 
organized and the mills practically closed down when 
the strike was called.’ 


The victory achieved by the Steel Trust thru the aid of the 
Government lent great impetus to the Open-Shop drive. The 
policy of Gary’s corporation “not to deal with Union labor 
leaders at any time” became the battle-cry of the Open-Shop 
walriors. 

In the Mine Strike the Government pursued the same strike- 
breaking policy. The Democratic President Wilson declared 
the strike illegal. On October 24, 1919, he said that: 


“From whatever angle the subject may be viewed, 
it is apparent that such a strike in such circumstances 
would be the most far-reaching plan ever presented in 
this country to limit the facilities of production and dis- 
tribution of all the necessities of life. A strike under 


these circumstances is not only unjustifiable; it is un- 
lawful.” (Our italics). 


This declaration is a model anti-union statement. It has 


served as the source of inspiration to several of Harding’s anti- 
labor messages. 


5) Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Vol. 2, Page 518— 
investigating the Steel Strike. 
6) Monthly Labor Review, Dec. 1919, Vol. 9, No. 6, Page 92. 


14 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


The Democratic Attorney-General Palmer spoke almost the 
very words subsequently used by his Republican successor, 
Daugherty, during the Railroad strike. On October 29, 1919, 
Palmer declared: 


“The illegality of the strike can and will be estab- 
lished without in any way impairing the right to strike, 
and the general right to strike is not the issue in any 
sense whatsoever in the present situation. This is true 
because the circumstances differentiate this case from 
the case of any other strike that has ever taken place 
in this country. It does not follow that any strike is 
lawful merely because the right to strike is recognized 
to exist.”” (Our italics). 


In the same statement Palmer pretended to be solicitous of 
the laborer’s inherent right to work and posed as a defender of 
the “right kind” of unionism. He announced: 


“Indeed, I am hearing from many sources that 
large numbers of the miners themselves do not wish to 
quit work and will not do so if assured the protection 
of the Government of which they properly feel them- 
selves a part. It is probably unnecessary for me to say 
that such protection will everywhere be given, so that 
men may exercise their undoubted right of continuing 
to work under such times and conditions as they shall 
see fit. The facts present a situation which challenges 
the supremacy of the law, and every resource of the 
Government will be brought to bear to prevent the na- 
tional disaster which would inevitably result from the 
cessation of the mining operations.” (Our italics). 


Here we have an official endorsement of Government strike- 
breaking. We have the same hypocritical talk of the “Right to 
work” — by strikebreakers — to the detriment of the working 
class. The unbridled hypocrisy of all this talk of the “right to’ 
work” yells for help when one thinks of the fact that this same 
Government did not utter a single word or take a single step to- 


THE GRAND OFFENSIVE 15 


wards guaranteeing this much-vaunted inherent right to the mil- 
lions of honest workers who were unemployed in 1914 and who 
refused to betray their brother-workers who may have been 
striking then. 


Our Democratic Congress was not to be outdone by the 
President and the Attorney-General. ‘The Senate made haste to 
endorse their strikebreaking activities and adopted the following 
resolution (S. Con. Res. 15—House of Representatives Con- 
curring) : 


“Whereas, the enforcement of the law and the 
maintenance of order for the security of life and pro- 
perty and the protection of the individual citizen in the 
exercise of the constitutional rights is the first and 
paramount duty of the Government and must be at all 
times vigorously and effectively safeguarded by the 
use of every means essential to that end: therefore be it 

“Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representa- 
tives concurring)”, That we hereby give the National 
Administration and all others in authority the assur- 
ance of our constant, continuous, and unqualified sup- 
port in the use of such constitutional and lawful means 
as may be necessary to meet the present industrial 
emergency and in vindicating the majesty and power 
of the Government in enforcing obedience to and re- 
spect for the Constitution, and the laws, and in fully 
protecting every citizen in the maintenance and ex- 
ercise of his lawful rights and the observance of his 
lawful obligations.” 


On November 8th, 1919, the Government’s lawyers, the 
Department of Justice, procured for the coal operators an in- 
junction restraining the union officials from aiding the strike in 
any way by “messages of encouragement or exhortation,” or from 
using any of the union funds for strike benefits. This injunction 
was based on the Lever Anti-Profiteering Act, a law enacted sup- 
posedly to stop profiteering while the war was on. This law was 


16 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


not used against the capitalists. It was turned against the work- 
ers. On November 14, 1919, came the declaration of the reac- 
tionary labor leaders calling off the strike under the plea of “we 
won't fight our Government.” This confession of bankruptcy 
was a grim monument to the power of the United States Govern- 
ment as strikebreaker. 


The Government Organizes Wholesale Raids on Workers. 


Thru the “Red Raids” of January 1920, the Government 
threw its last spadeful of earth in preparing the ground for the 
subsequent powerful Open-Shop drive. Thousands of militant 
workers were arrested. Hundreds were deported. The attack 
was launched against the foreign-born workers who form a very 
large proportion of our working class. In this attack the Com- 
munist Party of America was driven underground and the Gov- 
ernment succeeded in intimidating hundreds of thousands of 
foreign-born workers. The industrial unrest gripping the coun- 
try was given a Red tinge. “Un-Americanism,” “disloyalty,” 
“treason” and “bolshevism” were the stock-in-trade of the Gov- 
ernment’s fake advertising campaign of the Open-Shop drive. 
The object was twofold: to blind and divide the workers by in- 
jecting the nationality issue into the struggle, and to break the 
morale of the whole working class by meting out severe punish- 
ment to its most advanced advocates. By a campaign of un- 
paralleled brutality the militant spirit of the workers was dealt 
a crushing blow. The ground was fully prepared for the 
heavy artillery of the employers to open up its infernal barrage 
on the workers. 


The Open-Shop Drive 
Open-Shop campaigns are not new in America. But the 


Open-Shop drive launched in 1920, on a country-wide scale, was 
by far the best organized and the best financed we have yet had. 


THE GRAND OFFENSIVE 17 


It was strongly centralized thru the powerful leadership of the 
Steel Trust whose tentacles reached out to all phases of industry 
thru its numerous interlocking directorates, banks, and the con- 
trol of coal, railroads, cement, and many other basic industries. 
Gary was the High Priest of this unholy crusade against the 
working class. 


The Democratic President appointed Gary as a representa- 
tive of the “public” to his First Industrial Conference. At this 
conference, Wilson’s attempt to stave off the industrial conflict 
was sunk beneath a sea of words. Gary made an impassioned 
plea for the Open-Shop on behalf of the “public.” Wilson’s 
Second Industrial Conference was a fizzle for the same reasons. 


Masked under such names as the “American Idea,” the 
“American Plan” and 57 other varieties of this brand of Ameri- 
canism the drive made tremendous headway. Chambers of Com- 
merce, Kiwanis Clubs, Rotary Clubs and many other commercial 
organizations loyally fell in line and formed a compact network 
of Open-Shop nuclei thruout the country.. In its Referendum 
No. 31—“Employment Relations”— held June 9th to July 24th, 
1919, the United States Chamber of Commerce adopted the fol- 
lowing resolution by a vote of 1676 against 4: 


“The right of open shop operation, that is the right 
of the employer and employee to enter into and to de- 
termine the conditions of employment relations with 
each other, is an essential part of the individual right 
of contract possessed of each of the parties.” 


Over 1,500,000 pieces of propaganda literature were put 
out in 1920. On October 15 of the same year the National As- 
sociation of Manufacturers openly announced the establishment 
of a special Open-Shop Department to direct the drive. In a 
speech delivered before the National Founders’ Association, Pres- 
ident William H. Barr spoke in this manner: 


18 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“A change has been brought about by the de- 
termination of men to free themselves from the un- 
sound and unnatural control so imposed upon them. 
Today, that determination is manifest in the Open-Shop 
movement. Its progress is a matter of economy to 
those who began it; of consolation to those engaged in 
industry; and a stimulant to the patriotism of every- 
one. A partial, but careful survey of irresistible acti- 
vities in behalf of the Open-Shop show that 540 organi- 
zations in 247 cities of 44 States are engaged in pro- 
moting this American principle in the employment 
relations. A total of 23 national industrial associa- 
tions are included in these agencies. In addition, 1665 
local Chambers of Commerce, are also pledged to the 
principle of the Open-Shop.” 


On January 16, 1921, Mr. J. Philip Bird, General Manager 
of the National Association of Manufacturers, made a similar 
boast. He said: 


“More than five hundred organizations in 250 
cities have now endorsed the Open-Shop plan and 
prominent manufacturers declare they could not stem 
the tide if they wished.” 


Thru the energetic efforts of the Manufacturers’ Association 
of Illinois—an organization vying with the Associated Employ- 
ers of Indianapolis for the prime honors in giving a national 
color to the organization of the drive— the first national Open- 
Shop convention, the “American Idea Convention,” was called to 
order in Chicago on January 21st, 1921. 


Among the leaders of this open shop drive were to be found 
the following organizations: The National Association of Manu- 
facturers, National Open-Shop Association, the National Erectors’ 
Association, the National Founders’ Association, the National 
Metal Trades’ Association, and the League for Industrial Rights. 


THE GRAND OFFENSIVE 19 


Object of the Drive 


The Industrial Relations Committee thus defined the object 
of the Open-Shop movement: 


“The ‘Open-Shop’, even if union men are not dis- 
criminated against, is, as much a denial of the right 
of collective action as the ‘Anti-union-shop’.” In 
neither is the collective action of the employees per- 
mitted for the purpose of negotiating with reference 
to labor conditions.’”) 


And in a letter to the Weekly Review (January 12, 1921), 
Mr. Ernest G. Draper, President of the American Creosoting Co., 
writing on the significance of the Open-Shop drive said: 


“They are out to crack organized labor and crack 
it wide open. ‘They will do it carefully, secretly, 
perhaps, with the aid of any convenient slogan. But 
they will do it if they can.” 


The National Catholic Welfare Council saw the purpose of 


this movement very clearly. Its Social Action Department made 
the following statement: 


“The Open-Shop drive masks under such names 
as the ‘American Plan’ and hides behind the pretense 
of American freedom. Yet its real purpose is to destroy 
all effective labor unions and thus subject the working 
people to the complete domination of the employers. 
Should it succeed in the measure that its proponents 
hope, it will thrust far into the ranks of the underpaid 
the body of the American working people.”®) (Our 
italics). 


The philosophy of this drive has been clearly elucidated in 
a speech delivered by Judge Gary at a meeting of the stockhold- 
ers of the United States Steel Corporation on April 18, 1921: 

7) U. S. Commission on Industrial Relations, Final Report, 1915, P. 


8) The Survey, Dec. 4, 1920, Page 350. 


20 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“I believe they (the labor unions) may have been 
justified in the long past, for I think the workmen were 
not always treated justly; that because of their lack 
of experience or otherwise they were unable to protect 
themselves; and therefore needed the assistance of out- 
siders in order to secure their rights. 

“But whatever may have been the conditions of 
employment in the long past, and whatever may have 
been the results of unionism, concerning which there is 
at least much uncertainty, there is, at present, in the 
opinion of the large majority of both employers and 
employees, no necessity for labor unions; and that no 
benefit nor advantage thru them will accrue to anyone 
except the union labor leaders. 


“But still our opinion is that the existence and 
conduct of labor unions in this country, at least are 
inimical to the best interests of the employees, the em- 
ployers and the general public.” 


Professor Commons has characterized this philosophy in 
these words: 


“The Steel Corporation has kept ahead of the 
game; not by doing better than the labor unions can 
do, but by doing worse and doing it in the name of 
‘Liberty and the Open-Shop’.”®? 


The Open-Shoppers At Work 
A. SECRECY 


The Open-Shoppers did not stop at anything to crush labor. 
A subsidized press, a hireling church, undercover men and meth- 
ods shrouded in sinister secrecy characterized their drive against 
the workers. Apropos of this, Prof. Clarence E. Bonnett says: 


“There is much that is confidential and secret 
about associations. In the conflict, one must not let 


9) Industrial Government, by John R. Commons, Page 265. 


THE GRAND OFFENSIVE 


one’s opponent know in advance one’s plans or proposed 
methods, nor one’s real fighting strength, unless that is 
so great as to intimidate one’s opponent. For this rea- 
son, much of the work of the associations is conducted 
secretly. In some cases, lists of members are not 
made public because some of the employers fear that 
the unions may single them out and punish them. It 
also permits an employer apparently to be friendly to 
the union, because he dares not fight it openly, yet to 
fight it secretly. Then there are doubtful practices 
which the association engaging in them, does not wish 
to make public. Illegal activities are of the last 
sort.””!0) 


21 


Much capital has been made by the propagandists of this 


anti-union conspiracy concerning the spontaneity of their move- 


ments. 
tions rip 


The following typical appeals of Open-Shop organiza- 
the veil off this “spontaneity”: 


AMERICAN EMPLOYERS OPEN SHOP ASSOCIATION 


eee 


Suite 356, 29 So. La Salle Street 
Chicago, [linois, Nov. 23, 1920. 


Attention General Manager: 


Omaha, Neb. 


Dear Sir: We are writing you at this time to at- 


tempt to get you or your company into the Open-Shop 
Association. 


As the time is ripe for all manufacturing concerns 


to run their shops as they see fit, and not to be dictated 
to by some unscrupulous delegate from some union. 


You may see the point that we are driving at very 


elearly. The Open-Shop Association will do a great 
deal for its members. 


10) 
Page 552. 


1) Should you be threatened with a labor con- 


Employers Ass’ns. in the United States, by Clarence E. Bonnett, 


22 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


troversy or strike, you can immediately get in touch 
with us and we will handle that situation for you. 

2) Should you want an undercover man on the 
inside among your employees, we will also furnish 
you such a man, and you will receive a daily report on 
what is going on. 

3) In the event of trouble, we will replace any 
man that may strike against you. 

4) We establish Welfare Clubs in your plant from 
which you derive a lot of benefit; and all manufac- 
turers are alive to this issue. 

Our membership is growing larger every day and 
we would be glad to have you also fill out the accom- 
panying application for membership in this institution. 
The initiation fee is $50 and the yearly dues is $25. 

Trusting that you will acknowledge receipt of this 
letter, we remain, 


Yours truly, 
AMERICAN EMPLOYERS OPEN SHOP ASsSOCIATION.1? 


Here is another letter sent out by the National Open-Shop 
Association with headquarters at Indianapolis, Philadelphia and 
San Antonio: 


“Gentlemen: We have been in correspondence with 
your Manufacturers’ Association relative to us organiz- 
ing a local Open Shop Association in your city for the 
purpose of putting into effect there the principles of the 
Open-Shop, a copy of which we are enclosing you. 

“So as to proceed with this work effectively, we 
desire to secure 25 charter members and we are writ- 
ing you in strict confidence, hoping that you can see 
your way clear to signify your willingness to join us in 
this movement providing we find it advisable to go 
ahead with our plans. 

“This work must be clothed with the utmost sec- 
recy, as we have found that publicity usually defeats 


11) See “The Open Shop Drive” by Savel Zimand, Page 37. 


THE GRAND OFFENSIVE 23 


our purposes. For this reason you can feel sure that 
we will treat the matter in strict confidence. 

“Please let us hear from you regarding the matter, 
and we will gladly furnish any additional information 
you may desire. 


“NATIONAL OPEN SHOP ASSOCIATION. 
(Our Italics) (Signed) James L. Glass, Sec’y.”!” 


B. PRESS AND CHURCH 


The report of the Interchurch World Movement affords an 
excellent study of the splendid services rendered by the Press 
and Church to the Steel Trust, the heart and soul of the Na- 
tional Open-Shop movement.!) 


Cc. UNDERCOVER MEN 


This same authority investigating the Steel Strike of 1919 
has conclusively proved that the Open-Shoppers make very wide 
use of undercover men. 

Mr. Sidney Howard investigating the use of “invisible serv- 
ice” agencies for the New Republic showed that one of these 
firms has done so much business during a year that it was paying 
an annual income tax of $258,000. 

Quoting from the testimony of Mr. Sherman of the Sherman 
Service, Inc., in its injunction suit against the Butler Agency of 
Philadelphia, Mr. Howard presents the following: 


“Thru our secret operatives and particularly those 
who had gained influential positions in the local organi- 
zation, we are able to anticipate every move of the 
strikers and by this means . . . . were able to have 
several arrests made which resulted in proper convic- 
tions, . 


12) Quoted by Samuel Gompers in the American Federationist, Oct: 
1922, Page 733. 

13) Public Opinion and the Steel Strike—Pages 87-163 and Pages 
261-306. 


24 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“The local union was disorganized and that national 
industry of which our client is the great majority, has 
not been unionized.”!4) 


Another method of the drive is that employed by the Cor- 
porations’ Auxiliary Company. 


“CORPORATIONS’ AUXILIARY COMPANY 
“1836 Euciip AVENUE, 
“Cleveland, Ohio, October 18, 1920. 


“Personal and Confidential 


“Gentlemen: 

“Enclosed is a folder entitled “The Power of 
Knowledge’ that briefly points the way for you to obtain 
mastery over every labor problem in your organization. 

“Many of the biggest, ablest, and most successful 
executives in the United States today, will join us in 
recommending to you, the service outlined in this folder. 

“The writer or one of our other executives will be 
in your vicinity the week after next and will be glad to 
arrange his appointments to call on you. He will ex- 
plain in person exactly what we can do for you. This 
consultation will obligate you to nothing. 

“Will it be convenient for you to make an appoint- 
ment during the week after next? 

“Thanking you in advance for the courtesy of your 
reply, we are, 

“CORPORATIONS’ AUXILIARY COMPANY, 
“(Signed) J. H. Smith, 


“President.”!5) 
D. BOYCOTT | 
In his testimony before the Lockwood Joint Legislative Com- 


mittee, Mr. C. E. Cheney, Secretary of the National Erectors’ 
Association gave evidence of the solidarity permeating the ranks 


14) The New Republic Feb. 23, 1921, Page 363. 
15) Quoted by Savel Zimand in “The Open Shop Drive,” Page 38. 


THE GRAND OFFENSIVE 29 


of the Open-Shoppers. He testified that the National Fabricators’ 
Association had 


“adjusted the policy of the members so that the steel 
fabricated by them is erected in Open-Shop.” 


And the Iron League, another implacable foe of organized 
labor, adopted the following resolution at a special meeting: 


“Complying with the order of the Board of Gov- 
ernors of the Building Trades Employers’ Association, 
no advance in wages can be made and the secretary will 
so notify members.” 


E. THE OPEN-SHOP UNION 


Another method of fighting unionism is thus treated by 
Professor Bonnett. 


“The belligerent associations did not make an un- 
conditional surrender. The entire ground of the 
struggle is now being fought over again, and with more 
bitterness than ever before. The records show that 
we have been passing thru the greatest strike period of 
all history. Any one who has studied the attitude and 
activities of the belligerent associations during the past 
twenty years will be inclined to believe that the unions 
will lose much of the ground they gained during the 
war period of 1914-1918. 

if i During the period 1919-1921 many 
‘open-shop’ associations have been formed in various 
localities. Employers in many industries are attempt- 
ing to free themselves from union domination fastened 
upon them during the war. One of the most discussed 
methods of fighting unionism is the “Shop Union’—that 
is the union of only the employees in a shop. Such a 
union has no ‘entangling alliances’ with any other 
union.”!6) 


16) Prof. Clarence E. Bonnett in “Employers Ass’ns. in the U. S., 
Pages 28 and 30. 


26 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Resulis of the Drive 


No union was immune from this fierce capitalist onslaught. 
Even for the railroad workers the right to organize became a 
vital issue. In decision No. 220, August 3, 1921, the U.S. Railway 
Labor Board held: “That the Carrier (the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road) was right in insisting upon proof that the organization 
represented a majority of the workers involved,” before dealing 
with it. This was intended as a mortal blow at labor unionism 
on the railways. It was the entering wedge for the smashing 
anti-union offensive of the Railway Corporations, and it was the 
Government that struck the first blow.!” 


Summing up the effect of this drive on the workers, Samuel 
Gompers portrayed the following picture: 


“The fact is that these organizations had to fight 
for life. They have been driven to fight for their exist- 
ence, for their freedom, for the very bedrock rights of 
American free men. They have seen employers break 
contracts, they have had to resist drastic wage reduc- 
tions, they have been confronted with innumerable op- 
positions, defiances and blows at their very existence. 
The Miners, the Printers, the Granite Cutters, the 
Quarry workers, the Packing House workers—these are 
but some of the organizations with which organized em- 
ployers have wantonly broken their pledged word, their 
written agreement. The workers have had the proof in 
their daily experiences. Tomes could tell them noth- 
ing more.”!8) 


17) Bulletin No. 303, U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 1922, 
Page 94. 
18) The American Federationist, Oct. 1922, Page 738. 


CHAPTER II. 
THE GREAT DEPRESSION 


Depression Sets in 


\\iaeteg the workers were being driven back by the capitalists 


a severe depression overtook the country. 


By the middle of 1920 the prices of bonds reached the low- 
est level since the Civil War. By July 1921, pig iron fell to a 
point relatively lower than that reached in any other depression. 
The volume of business dropped 25%—a 5% greater fall than 
is usual in depression. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1921, 
the export of cotton fell three million bales below the average 
of the five years next preceding the war. 


Chief among the causes of this economic crisis were the 
collapse of America’s European market and the difficulties in- 
volved in the problems of readjusting the mechanism of produc- 
tion and exchange to a peace basis. In 1921 our total exports 
declined 45% and those to Europe and South America fell off 
by two billion dollars. Our total imports declined 52%. 


That this decline in foreign trade is not yet over is evident 
from the report of the Department of Commerce for the fiscal 
year ending June 30, 1922. America’s total foreign trade for 
this fiscal year was $6,379,000,000 as compared with $10,170,- 
000,000 in the previous year. In the last year imports fell from 
$3,654,000,000 to $2,608,000,000 and exports fell from $6,516,- 
000,000 to $3,771,000,000. 

27 


28 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Deflation and Unemployment 


At the same time the financiers tightened up on credits. The 
campaign of deflation was on. Addressing the U. S. Senate on 
Sept. 20, 1922, the late “Tom” Watson of Georgia, pointed out 
that: 


“In December, 1920, there was in circulation 34 
billion dollars. In December, 1921, there was in cir- 
culation 24 billion dollars. | 

“There was a difference of ten billion dollars and 
the veriest amateur in the study of economics, knows 
in his mind, his heart and his soul that it is a crime to 
take that amount of money out of circulation in so short 
a period. It is bound to mean abandoned farms and 
broken homes. It is bound to mean destitution, beg- 
gary, and suicide. It has always been so and always 
will be so. 

“Those who control the volume of money are like 
those who have their hand around your neck. They 
can choke off or let on the flow of blood. 

“Unless this system is changed this Government is 
going into a vortex of revolution and a new Government 
will arise and take its place.” 


The very men who during the war were calling for more and 
more production, were now shutting down mills and factories. 
With the demobilization of the Army and Navy, hundreds of 
thousands were thrown into the already huge army of unem- 
ployed. Writing on this crisis in the winter of 1921-22 to his 
Conference on Unemployment, President Harding said: “We 
have just passed the winter of the greatest unemployment in the 
history of our country.” 

The number of unemployed had been estimated to range up 
to six million. In October 1921, the President’s Unemployment 
Conference, making a conservative estimate, declared “The Con- 


ference finds that there are estimated from 3,500,000 to 5,500,000 


THE GREAT DEPRESSION 29 


unemployed and there is a much greater number dependent upon 
them.” In so far as remedial steps were concerned, the con- 
ference turned out to be a flat fizzle. 


Bitterness of the Struggle 


The intense bitterness of the class conflict grew out of the 
political and economic conditions. Terrified by the disturbed 
world political conditions, the capitalists determined to smash 
every organ of working-class resistance. The unions, of course, 
had to bear their share of the attack. 

The severe depression with its millions of unemployed gave 
the employers further stimulus to cut wages and rob the workers 
of the laboring conditions previously won. The capitalists saw 
their only chance of securing profits approaching the fabulous 
war gains thru a reduction of wages, thru the lengthening of the 
hours of labor and the progressive deterioration of the working 
conditions. 

That the fierce determination of the capitalists to slash wages 
was due in a large measure to their becoming profit-mad during 
the war period can be seen from the gigantic profits they reaped 
then. In four of the industries closely allied to railroads, we 
had the following surpluses piled up during 1916-1920. 


ERE Wig St. oe Sik asst tines Bucditss $825,958,160 
Spa and sCok6 ss iiasicdede'sisv at 139,075,444 
PSPAOTNOTIE forbade Oe shee w+ 139,791,071 
Other Supply Concerns ...... 182,782,372 
Prand Lotal ee dsia. oo ee $1,287,607,047 » 


Senator Capper in a speech before the Senate declared that 
the fabulous profits paid to the coal barons and steel magnates 
during the war more than paid for the whole value of the coal 


1) From the Testimony of Bert M. Jewell of the Railway Employees 
Department of the A. F. of L. before the Railway Labor Board, March 1922. 


30 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


mines and steel mills. Throughout the war the Government failed 
with unfailing regularity to regulate the prices of copper, gaso- 
line, steel and coal—the very commodities whose owners were the 
backbone of the Open-Shop drive. 

Senate Document No. 259 discloses a legion of facts as to 
riotous profiteering running into thousands of per cent in some 
instances. 

On the basis of the income tax returns, ex-Secretary of the 
Treasury, Wm. G. McAdoo charged that the profits of some coal 
operators, ranked as high as 2000 per cent and that 100 per cent 
profits on capital stock were not uncommon. 

During the war the banks of the U. S. made a profit of 
$1,747,605,000. This sum was three times as great as for 
a similar period before the war. 

Pungent comment on this mass of profits is made by John 
Thomas Taylor, Legislative Representative of the American 
Legion, in a letter to Congressmen and Senators: 


“These enormous bank profits of nearly one and 
three quarters billions of dollars are in addition to the 
profits which were not retained such as dividends, extra 
dividends and bonus payments to their own employees 
during the war period. 

“A large proportion of these unprecedented profits 
were made and retained by the New York banks con- 
trolled by the great financial interests which are leading 
the fight against adjusted compensation for veterans on 
‘principle’. One might say on ‘principal and inter- 
est’. 29 


When the bottom fell out of the European market and the 
world depression seized America these huge profits ceased to 
flow. But the capitalists were determined to continue making 
the greatest profits possible. They organized a terrific cam- 
paign against the workers to deflate them of more of their already 
meagre earnings. 


THE GREAT DEPRESSION 3] 


A Study in Contrast 


Let no one for a moment cultivate the notion that the em- 
ployers were ruined by the depression. A perusal of the columns 
of the financial press reveals a startling one-sidedness in the casu- 
alties suffered by the workers and their capitalist exploiters. The 
score is positively and decisively against the workers. 

Judged: by the number of business failures, January 1922 
hit the bottom at 2,723. This same month hit the peak of divid- 
end and interest payments, $359,800,000. 

In 1921 average monthly payments of dividends and inter- 
est to security holders totalled $296,000,000. Taking 1913 as 
a normal year, this was an increase of 100%. 

And according to the monthly records of dividend and inter- 
est payments made by the Journal of Commerce of New York, 
payments were 4% greater in 1921 than in 1920, when we take 
the actual income as a whole. 

From the following survey, covering 29 corporations, it is 
seen that many companies fared even better in 1921, the year of 
depression, than in 1920, one of the prosperity years. 


Table Showing Net Profits of Corporations in Prosperity of 1920 
and in Depression of 1921! 


1920 1921 
Name of Corporation Net Profits Dividend Paym’t Net Profits Dividend Paym’t 
Per Share Per Share 

American Telephone 

and Telegraph Co. .. $51,821,215 $54,002,703 
American Woolen Co... 4,626,855 $ 4.57 6,006,648 $ 8.01 
Associated Dry Goods.. 4,11 10.24 
Atchison, Topeka & 


Santa Ke R, RR. .... .eese0,590 13.98 41,268,307 14.69 
Atlantic Gulf and West 

Indies Steamship 

IES PE ees eels 148,231 1,781,337 


32 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Net Prorits or CorPORATIONS—Continued 


1920 1921 
Name of Corporation Net Profits Dividend Paym’t Net Profits Dividend Paym’t 
~~ Per Share Per Share 
Baldwin Locomotive 
BOTES 0 Stina te cl tices $15.14 $18.22 
California Petroleum 
Corporation Ay 9.29 11.45 
Chicago, Indianapolis & 
Louisville R. R. .... —$1,133,893 (loss) $723,564 
Commonwealth Power, 
Railway & Light Co. 797,738 1,838,767 
Delaware & Hudson 
Railway Co. ....... 4,933,162 4,937,452 
Elgin, Joliet & Eastern 
Railway Go-tste asic ets 1,088,316 1,260,777 
Endicott Johnson Corp.. 3,150,441 6.43 4,642,889 10.79 
General Electric ..... 26,420,616 28,155,667 
Lackawanna R. R. .... 14,658,444 19,518,403 
Lehigh Valley R. R... 1,596,963 2.62 9,788,066 8.29 
Missouri, Pacific R. R. 3,033,075 3,537,018 
Ne Ys; Central “Rui RA‘... oi sos hoa0or 5.50 22,295,685 8.93 
N. Y. Telephone ...... 6,070,073 4.04 13,244,543 8.29 
Northern Pacific R. R. 19,094,184 22,065,399 
Pere Marquette R. R. 1,393,972 3,765,879 
Public Service Corp. 
of New Jersey ...... 2,218,408 5,12 3,594,629 9.19 
R. G. Reynolds Tobacco 10,691,294. 16,258,322 
Southern California 
Bison | 0% Sok rs 3,071,795 3,444,027 
Studebaker Corp. ..... 15.20 10,409,601 16.20 
Tennessee Copper 
& Chemical ........ —285,889 (loss) 147,175 
U. S. Realty & 
Improvement ....... 2,487,803 15.39 2,704,651 16.73 
Virginia R. R. Co..... 3,287,461 5,245,827 
Wabash R. R. Co. .... —7,369,827 (loss) 2,017,575 
Wells Fargo & Co..... 453,041 1.89 1,279,707 5.34 


THE GREAT DEPRESSION 33 


The Workers Lose 


Now let us see whether the workers were subjected to the 
same “casualties.” 


Analyzing the 1921 payrolls of 1648 concerns, employing 
one third of the total number of factory workers in the State, the 
New York State Industrial Commission concluded that because 
of wage cuts and unemployment, the workers got but 71.4% of 
what they received in 1920. 


In the analysis by the Wisconsin State Industrial Commis- 
sion of 211 payrolls in 1921 covering one third of all the indus- 
trial workers, we find that the workingmen in Wisconsin received 
only 55% of the 1920 wage. 


A comparison of the wages the New York State workers re- 
ceived in December 1921 with those received by them at the peak 
of prosperity in 1920, shows that in the wage-fall their pay had 
gone down fully 33-1/3%. On the same basis the Wisconsin 
workingmen suffered a cut of more than 50%. 


Even such a strongly conservative authority as the National 
Industrial Conference Board has found that: 


“The percentage of decline for the three groups 
from the peak months up to July 1921 were as follows: 
Common labor, 17.3 per cent; skilled labor, 15.2 per 
cent; women, 14.6 per cent.”?) 


Investigation of wage cuts by industries in the period of 
depression made by so conservative an agency as the Jacobs 
Company of Chicago gives us a more detailed picture of how 
the workers, unlike their employers, suffered from the depression. 


2) Research Report No. 45, December, 1921—Page 8, National In- 
dustrial Conference Board. 


34 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


No. of workers No. of Establishments Per cent 


Industry involved involved Wage-Cut 
Bootuandg shoe vee, i855) \eieiere 39 17.5 
Building trades ....... 200,000 in 183 cities 17.1 
Clothing workers ...... 100,000 : 16.7 
Cotton, Wool and 

Leather Manufacturing 340,000 69 20-24 
Tron aNd -StOE] Mee. nis ae lee een np 19.2 
IVI DE eee ere wits ca eee er es anes he 19.5 
Miscellaneous Industries 866 ay 16.4 
Packers icpiienud etnias 200,000 RA 255 
Public Employees ..... 100,000 in 8 cities 16.5 
Railway and Express .. 1,879,000 ie 123 
silk manitfacturing™ 25.) /2.20 7 ee 25 mills 16.2 
Street Railway and 

and other Utility Men 140,000 se 14.8 


For five million workers the Jacobs Company found an 
average wage reduction of 16.1% in 1921 alone. 

The Sixth Bi-Monthly Survey of the National Industrial 
Conference Board, May 1922, further found that in 1921 the wage 
decreases ranged from: 


Per Cent Wage Cut Industry 
SD LOwed , aan oe In the Building trades 
LOSTORZS oF LN In the Clothing trades 
OE a. ea In the Granite Cutters trade 
Loco e iuetsee In the Marine Workers trades 
Py A ed iene In the Metal trades 
Dee Leeann ee In the Shoe Industry in New England 


These are some of the casualties of the wave of depression 
for the workers. On the one hand we have the capitalists, in the 
midst of America’s severest economic crisis, receiving greater 
dividends and interest than ever before; in many instances ac- 
tually increasing their annual net income by millions of dollars. 


THE GREAT DEPRESSION 35 


On the other hand we see millions unemployed and millions sub- 
jected to progressively deteriorating working conditions and 
rapidly declining wages. 


Again, while the employers were perfecting their fighting 
associations, the workers’ organizations were steadily losing 
their membership in the face of the capitalist onslaught and 
severe depression. The membership of the International Sea- 
men’s Union dropped from 115,000 in 1920 to 50,000 in 1921. 
The Maintenance of Way Men lost almost 125,000 members in 
this crisis. The American Federation of Labor lost 710,893 
members; its official figures falling down to 3,195,635. And there 
are many who believe that these figures would be much more 
accurate if they were somewhere in the neighborhood of two 
and a half million. 


The Farmers and Soldiers Are Hard Hit 


But the organized and unorganized workers were not the 
only ones hard hit by the economic crisis. The farmers and 
those workers who had bled for their employers on the battle- 
fields of France were also very deep in the slough of normalcy. 


Mr. Hanford Macnider, formerly National Commander of 
the American Legion, describing the desperate conditions wel- 
coming the ex-soldiers on their return home said: 


“Frank J. Bart of West Hoboken, N. J., wears the 
Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest award for 
bravery granted by America; and also the Croix de 
Guerre with three palms, the French Medaille Militaire, 
the Italian Croce de Guerra and the Montenegrin War 
Cross. 

“.. » This man walked the streets for fifteen months 
in search of work. Only a few months ago he secured a 
job as general utility man in the office of his County 


Clerk. 


36 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“Experiences as-bitter and as hard to understand 
have been undergone by hundreds of thousands of his 
comrades. Desperate from hunger and want, ex-soldiers 
of America have told our employment agencies that 
they will do anything. Jobless and without money, F. 
W. Smith, of Omaha, Neb., honorably discharged from 
the service of the U. S. and head of a family of three, 
grasped at the chance for ‘work’ offered by the Legion 
Employment Service and sold his blood at hospitals for 
$25 a pint. For several months blood for transfusion 
operations in a hospital at Cleveland, Ohio, has been 
supplied by unemployed veterans. 

“Such conditions as these were at their worst dur- 
ing the past winter. A national survey of the situation, 
showed that there were more than 700,000 veterans of 
the World War out of work and almost out of hope.’?) 


In an address on the rail and coal strikes before a gathering 
of farmers in Virginia, the Secretary of Agriculture, Wailace, 
admitted the utter helplessness of the farmers. 


“The farmers have endeavored to get relief by all 
lawful means. They have appealed to the Adminis- 
tration, to Congress, and to every other agency which 
they thought might be able to aid them.” 


All the golden election promises turned into the usual leaden 
performances. Mr. Wallace declared that in 1921 the purchas- 
ing power of the farmer was actually less from 25 to 45% than. 
in 1913. 

At the same time that the employing class was paying the 
worker less and less for his labor power, they were also paying 
the farmers less and less for their products. In June 1922, the 
Bureau of Markets and Crop Estimates of the Department of 
Agriculture announced that the average value per acre of the ten 


3) Current History—N. Y. Times, July 1922, Page 548. 
4) “Labor”’—Aug. 26, 1922—Page 4. 


THE GREAT DEPRESSION 37 


crops constituting 9/10 of all crop production, dropped from 
the average value of $34.74 per acre in 1919, to $14.52 per acre 
in 1921l—a fall of almost 59%. Today the farmers who toil 
from sunrise to sunset are heavily in debt to these same capital- 
ists that oppress and expoit the city workers. They owe in farm 
mortgages alone, approximately: 


$1,500,000,000 to Commercial banks 
1,250,000,000 to Insurance Companies 
5,200,000,000 to Farm Mortgage Companies 


We find that even exclusive of what is due on machinery, in 
exorbitant interest, and debts for other sundry items, the farm- 
ers owe the money and land sharks a tribute of at least $8,000,- 
000,000. The sum is probably much larger, for many farmers 
do not report their mortgage debts because they fear that their 
neighbors or others might learn the information. 

Said the well-known financier, Eugene Meyer: 


“The collapse in agriculture and in the banking 
situation in the agricultural districts was characterized 
by an attempt to collect loans on farm commodities in 
too short a period.’ 


But the capitalists pressed the collection of these debts, re- 
gardless of the depression. 


This is the condition in which the farmers find themselves 
today after passing the economic crisis—a phenomenon inherent 
in the very nature of capitalist production and recurring with 
persistent regularity at almost definite intervals. | 


5) From Speech delivered by Eugene Meyer Jr., Managing Director— 
War Finance Corp., before the State Bank Division of the American Bank- 
ers’ Ass’n., Oct. 2, 1922, N. Y. City. 


38 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Wage Cuts Are Very Painful 


In their wage-cutting and union-smashing drive, the em- 
ployers have spread considerable misinformation as to the real 
earnings of the workers. They have deliberately exaggerated 
the gains made by the workers during the “war prosperity” in 
order to excuse their fierce campaign of deflating wages. The 
findings of the most authoritative investigators, decisively dispel 
these illusions and misinformation. Said the Federal Council 


of Churches: 


“It cannot be too often repeated that high wages 
during the war were by no means so general as believed, 
and that the demand for a reduction in wages in propor- 
tion to the reduction of living costs has been made 
without reference to the fact that wages, prior to the 
war, were too low, and cannot be fairly taken as a 
basis of wage determination.”® 


This same authority goes on to say that: 


“Even without reference to the general movement 
of real wages, working peoples’ earnings since the be- 
ginning of the war have been greatly exaggerated in the 
public mind. They are thought of in the terms of what 
the carpenter or the plumber, or the railroad engineer, 
or the highly skilled steel worker has been able to com- 
mand. Even in these apparently favored occupations, 
the total earnings are often much less than the wage rate 
indicates, on account of under-employment.””) 


Loss of labor time thru unemployment and irregularity of 
employment takes a heavy toll from the workingmen. The 
American Federated Engineering Society has found that on 
the average the shoemaker works but 65% of his time; the cloth- 
ing worker 69%; the building trades worker about 63%. Ir- 


6) Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, Labor Sun- 
day Message, 1922—Page 5. 
7) “The Wage Question,” Page 18—Federal Council of Churches. 


THE GREAT DEPRESSION 39 


regularity of employment is a chronic disease in the mining and 
textile industries.®) 

A refutation of the employers’ exaggerated claims as to 
wages, based on their own figures, was made public in October 
1922, by the National Catholic Welfare Council. The latter’s 
investigation disclosed that: 

In the period of the seven and a half years from 
the beginning of the war, the skilled workers gained 4.5 
per cent, the unskilled workers gained 1% and the wom- 
en gained almost 15% as compared with the cost of liv- 
ing figures furnished by the Federal Bureau of Labor 
Statistics. 

The average worker in the manufacturing indus- 
tries gained 4.5 per cent. The average skilled worker 
in these industries made about $1,325 a year; the aver- 
age unskilled worker about $1,025 a year, and the aver- 
age woman about $825. 

Using 1914 money on the basis of the cost of liv- 
ing, the skilled workers received 63c a week more than 
they did on the eve of the war; unskilled men got 12c; 
and women $1.15 a week more. 


In Some Industries Workers Fare Worse 


Mr. Basil Manly, who often acted as Joint Chairman of the 
War Labor Board with Chief Justice Taft, has investigated the 
wage question and has found that: 

The pick miners received 52c a ton in 1900; in 1913 they 
received 65c a ton and in 1921 $1.16 a ton. During this period 
the purchasing power of these wages compared with the rate of 
52c per ton in 1900 was only 48.5c in 1913 and 42.79c in 1921. 

The conductors and railroad engineers do not fare any 
better.. Today the wages of the former buy $95 less and the 
wages of the latter buy $162 less than they did in 1900. 


8) “Waste in Industry,” Page 16—American Federated Engineering 


Society, 1921. 
9) “Are Wages too High?”—by Basil Manly. 


40 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


And the lot vf the steel workers is even worse, according to 
the Interchurch World Movement Report: 


“The annual earnings of over one-third of all pro- 
ductive iron and steel workers were, and had been for 
years, below the level set by Government experts as 
the minimum of subsistence standard for families of 
five. 

“The annual earnings of 72% of all workers were, 
and had been for years below the level set by Govern- 

-ment experts as the minimum of comfort level for fa- 
milies of five.’”1°) 


Since then the steel wages have been cut 40% and raised 
20%. 
Mr. Manly then sums up: 


“We have now completed a survey of wage sta- 
tistics covering substantially all the workers employed 
in manufacturing, mining and transportation, and we 
have found that, except in a few isolated trades and oc- 
cupations, wages have failed to keep pace with the cost 
of living; and that substantially the American workers 
are therefore less well off than they were at the begin- 
ning of the century.” 

“Suppose we find that the wages of any workers 
have increased even faster than the cost of living, are 
we therefore to decide with equal positiveness, that such 
wages are too high! Let us see. Suppose that 20 years 
ago these particular workers were notoriously sweated, 
or were admittedly underpaid. It would then be ne- 
cessary that their wages be advanced faster than the cost 
of living, in order to bring them up to any decent 
level.’’!) 

“Because of the rising prices and profiteering, the 
dollar as a means of maintaining a home was worth 
when we entered the war in 1917, only half as much 


10) From the Interchurch World Movement Report on the Steel Strike 
in 1919. 

11) “Are Wages too High?”—by Basil Manly—Page 13. 

12) Ibid—Page 4 


THE GREAT DEPRESSION 41 


as the dollar of 1900, and by 1920 only one third. 
Compared with 1900, therefore, every dollar of the 
worker’s wages was worth only 49c in 1917 and 33c in 
1920. The man who made two dollars a day in 1900, 
therefore had to make six dollars a day in 1920, simply 
to ‘break even’,”’) 


On the basis of official Government figures, Basil Manly has 
constructed the following: 


Table Showing the Purchasing Power of Union Wages 
Since 1907.\) 


Relative Rate of Wages Buying Powerof Relative Buying 
Year Per Week-Full Time One Dollar Power of Union Wage 


1907 100 100 cents 100 
1913 109 82 cents 89 
1914, lll 79 cents 88 
1915 112 78 cents 86 
1916 116 69 cents 80 
1917 1s 58 cents ig 
1918 142 47 cents 66 
1919 162 44, cents 71 
1920 206 39 cents 81 
1921 209 45 cents 94, 


It is interesting to note that 1918 which was a banner year 
of profits for the employers was one of the worst years for the 
workingmen in so far as the actual purchasing power of the 
dollar is concerned. 


Standards of Living 


Considerable emphasis on the high American standards of 
living is continuously laid by the propagandists of the employers. 

As Royal Meeker, formerly Commissioner of Labor Statis- 
tics, has said: 


13) Ibid—Page 6 
14) Ibid—Page 7 


42 THE GOVERNMEN T—STRIKEBREAKER 


“Even in the higher income groups conditions are 
not so easy as they are frequently pictured to us. Let 
us not be fooled by the cry that the American standard 
of living is the highest in the world.”}») 


An examination of the following authoritatively prepared 
budgets, reveals the fact that the majority of the American work- 
ing class falls below the minimum level set by recognized re- 
sponsible agencies.!° 


Author of Budget Place and Date Total Amt. of Budget 
Wm. F. Ogburn, for Seattle, Wash. $1,505.60 
Seattle-Takoma St. Ry. October 1917 
Arbitration 
Jessica B. Piexotto San Francisco, Cal. $1,476.40 
October 1917 
Wm. F. Ogburn for the New York City $1,760.50 
National War Labor July 1918 
Board 
Philadelphia Bureau of Philadelphia $1,636.79 
Municipal Research October 1918 
Wm. F. Ogburn, for the Washington, D. C. $2,262.47 


United Mine Workers August 1919 
U. S. Bureau of Labor Bituminous Mining Towns $2,243.94 


Statistics 1919 
U. S. Bureau of Labor Chicago, III. $2,445.65 
Statistics (Quantity November 1921 


Budget priced by 
Labor Bureau, Inc.) 


Dr. Abraham Epstein, Director, Pennsylvania Old Age Pen- 
sion Commission, writing under the caption “Have American 
Wages Permitted an American Standard of Living?” sheds il- 
luminating comment on the budget question. 


15) Monthly Labor Review, Volume 9, No. 1, July, 1919—page 13. 


16) Federal Council of Churches, Bulletin No, 1—the Wage Question 
=—page 14, 


THE GREAT DEPRESSION 43 


“It is patent that despite the tremendous increase 
in wages, experienced during the last six years, only 
a few classes of wage earners have succeeded in keep- 
ing pace with the increased cost of living. In the case 
of many workers, especially the skilled ones, the pur- 
chasing power of their increased wages for a full time 
week in 1920 was considerably less than it was in the 
pre-war days. And if the great mass of workers, did 
not receive what is authoritatively considered an Amer- 
ican living wage before the present advance in prices 
had begun, their standards at the present time are ne- 
cessarily lowered.”?”) 


According to the last income tax returns those who received 
a thousand dollars or more per year, number only 5,332,760—-cr 
about 5% of the total population. There are 41,609,192 persons 
gainfully employed in the United States. This is 50.3 per cent 
of the total population of ten years of age and over. These 
figures also include employers, high government officials, and 
higher salaried employees. All of the latter undoubtedly receive 
more than $1,000 per year. It is obvious on the face of it that 
most of the workers fall below even this low income level. Sum- 
ming up his findings on the total inadequacy of the American 
wage today, Mr. Manly says: 


“]. American wages are not too high, judged by 
any fair standard of comparison. 

“2. With the exception of a few isolated occupa- 
tions that were miserably underpaid in- 1900, no class 
or group of workers has succeeded in maintaining un- 
impaired the real value of their wages as measured by 
the buying power which they possessed in 1900. 

“3. With the exception of a few isolated and ex- 
ceptionally skilled trades, the wages of American work- 
ers are insufficient, without supplement from other 


17) Annals of the Amer. Academy of Political and Social Science, 
Sept. 1921. 


44, THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


sources, to provide for the subsistence of a family con- 
sisting of husband, wife, and three minor children. 
Much less maintain them in that condition of ‘health 
and reasonable comfort’ which every humane considera- 
tion demands, 


“4, American Labor has been consistently de- 
_prived of its fair share in the ever-increasing product- 
ivity of the nation’s industries. It is this ever-increasing 
inequity that is at the root of the nation’s frequent in- 
dustrial depression. And it is out of this constant un- 
der-employment of labor that a large part of the great 
private fortunes and the huge surpluses of American 
corporations have been created.’’!®) 


It is plain to everyone from the above authoritative evidence 
that the high war time wages of the workers are a myth created 
by the capitalists. It is evident that the workers today are 
severely underpaid, even on the basis of the official figures of 
the Government and the employers’ associations. Living under 
such conditions, the workers were compelled to revolt against 
their employers whose interest is to exploit them in order to pile 
up huge profits. 


The Readjustment Strikes of 1921 


But the progressive deterioration of the wage workers’ con- 
ditions and the resultant, constant enriching of the capitalists 
were not totally free from working class resistance; though it 
must be admitted that during the first period of attack, the 
workers were completely overwhelmed by the ferocious on- 
slaught of their employers. 


In the Spring and Summer of 1921 there were widespread 
“readjustment strikes’—strikes on the part of the workers to 
resist wage deflation. The building trade workers, the packers, 


18) “Are Wages Too High?” by Basil Manly, Page 20. 


THE GREAT DEPRESSION A5 


the garment workers and the printers doggedly resisted the at- 
tacks on their wages and their unions. 

The printers’ strike began on May 1, 1921, and lasted for 
more than a year. The workers revolted against the campaign 
for the Open-Shop and the continuation of the 48-hour week 
launched by the Employing Printers of America. At a cost of 
over ten million dollars, the International Typographical Union 
succeeded in warding off the attack. But some of the smaller 
and less strongly organized printers’ unions that had always 
resisted amalgamation in the industry met with defeat. 

Another notable strike of 1921, was the one waged by the 
International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. It was declared 
as a protest against the breaking of an agreement by the em- 
ployers. After two months of struggle the workers went back. 
They had repulsed the attack on their union. 

On December 5th the workers of the “Big Five” packers 
went on strike in defence of their unions and against a wage cut 
of 8c an hour for those working by the hour and a 121% per cent 
reduction for those employed on the piecework basis. 

The Packers also declared that on and after March 14th, 
1921, overtime would be applied only after the 10th working hour 
or after 54 hours per week. In July the Packers petitioned for 
another cut in wages. Judge Alschuler, Administrator of the 
President’s Mediation Committee, denied their request on the 
ground that neither the condition prevailing in the industry it- 
self, nor the cost of living warranted this cut. The machinery 
of arbitration was then dropped. Company unions were set up, 
and on November 28th there came another wage reduction 
of three to seven and a half cents an hour. The Packers put this 
cut thru the farce of having it approved by the company unions. 

President Harding did not see fit to take any steps to have, 
let alone force, the Packers heed the award of the Govern- 
ment’s arbitration committee. The Packers also turned down 


46 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


the efforts at arbitration made by the Secretary of Labor Davis. 
But the Government did not make the sliglitest effort to have the 
Packers obey its official decision. The Government went much 
further. In Denver, Colorado, 25 members of the union were 
found guilty of contempt of court in refusing to heed an order 
requiring them to return to work pending action by the State 
Industrial Commission. This commission had the same func- 
tion as the Kansas Industrial Court—to deny the workers the 
right to strike against their capitalist employers. These work- 
ers, unlike the Packers, were sent to jail. Injunctions restraining 
the strikers came in abundance. In Ottumwa, Iowa, Judge 
Anderson, of check-off notoriety, issued an injunction preventing 
picketing. 

Secretary of Labor Davis, made another attempt at arbi- 
tration and reported that: 


‘The workers agreed to accept either, but the Pack- 
ers and their representatives refused and informed the 
Secretary that they did not desire mediation or arbitra- 
tion, as they had all the workmen they needed,” 


The strike was lost. It was broken by the Government. The 
workers who accepted the Government’s arbitration and media- 
tion were jailed. The Packers, the capitalists, who spurned and 
disregarded the Government’s efforts were protected and helped. 
The Government put at the disposal of the Packers, its military 
and judiciary power. The army and the courts reaped a harvest 
of casualties for the workers and a bumper crop of profits for the 
employers. 

Capitalists United—Workers Divided 


The capitalist offensive met with almost complete success. 
The employers were strongly united. The workers were hope- 
lessly divided into backward, inefficient craft unions, dominated 
by a reactionary bureaucracy that welcomed every opportunity 


THE GREAT DEPRESSION 7 47 


to avoid a fight or run away from a struggle, even when it was 
forced upon them. The battle-cry of the reactionary labor leader- 
ship was put forward by Gompers: 


“It is not our choice that we resist injustice.”}9) 


Against this divided front of the workers, the capitalists 
pitted their powerfully organized and splendidly financed em- 
ployers’ associations. Besides, their Government—the U. S. 
Government—fully carried out its mission of guiding and cen- 
tralizing the fighting forces of reaction and put its full military 
and judiciary powers at the disposal of the capitalists in order 
to crush the workers. 


As early as 1913, Congressional investigation of the money 
trust, exposed the solidarity and unity of the capitalists. It was 
then shown that four great financial institutions in New York, 
held 89 directorships in trust companies and banks; 78 in tran- 
sportation systems; 49 in purchasing and trade companies; 29 in 
insurance companies; and 16 in public utility corporations. 
These four banks holding the 261 directorships were: J. P. Mor- 
gan & Co., the Guarantee Trust Co., The Bankers Trust Co., the 
First National Bank of New York. Also, the Chase National 
Bank of New York held 22 directorships in ten other large banks 
and trust companies. The National Bank of Commerce in New 
York had 57 directorships in 22 other large trust companies and 
banks which then had resources of over two billion dollars. 
Further proof of the solidarity and unity of the capitalists, is 
seen from the fact that the railroads and the U. S. Steel Corpora- 
tion own 75% of the anthracite and bituminous coal mines and 
completely control the output of coal. This centralized control 
is obtained through the following financial institutions: 


19) American Federationist—October 1922—Page 739. 


43 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


1. J. P. Morgan & Co. 


2. 


First National Bank of New 
York 


3. Equitable Trust Co. 


4. 


3. 


6. 


trol our transportation system and coal mines. 


Guaranty Trust Co. 

Equitable Life Assurance 
Association of U. S. 

Mutual Life Ins. Co. of N. Y. 


7. American Surety Co. 


8. 


24 
10. 
ods 
12. 
13. 


Mechanics & Metals National 
Bank 

National City Bank 

National Surety Co. 

N. Y. Trust Co. 

Chase National Bank 

U. S. Steel Corporation 


The men who control these great financial institutions con- 


The coal mines 


and railroads controlled by these institutions are: 


cE 


OONA NN & w WH 


10. 
11. 
12. 
13. 


operating 211,280 miles. 


Norfolk & Western Ry. 


. Western Maryland Ry. 

. Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. 
. Penn. Coal & Coke Corp. 

. Pennsylvania Railroad 

. Penn. Coal Company 

. Erie Railroad 

. Reading Company 

. Phil. & Reading Ry. 


Phil. & Reading Coal Co. 
Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Co. 
Central Railroad of N. J. 
Lehigh Valley Railroad 


14 


15. 


16. 
17; 
18. 


£9; 


20. 
21. 
22. 
23. 


Lehigh Valley Coal Co. 
Delaware, Lackawanna & 
Western R. R. 

Delaware & Hudson Ry. Co. 
Coxe Bros. & Co. 

N. Y. Ontario & Western Rail- 
road Co. 

Maryland Coal Co. of West 
Virginia 

Pittsburgh Coal Co. 

Rocky Mountain Fuel Co. 
Chesapeake & Ohio R. R. Co. 
Virginia Railway 


Twenty-five men control 82% of the steam railway system 


These men divide amongst themselves 


193 directorships—an average of nearly eight directorships a 


piece. 

railways. 

1. Robert S. Lovett 6. H. S. Vanderbilt 
7 


2. Wm. Rockefeller 
3. H. W. DeForest 8. L. P. Loree 


They are:?°) 


. Samuel Rea 


4. A. H. Smith 9. A. J. County 
5. G. F. Baker 10. A. W. Kraech 
20) Representative 


162, No. 91—Page 5328, March 31, 1922, 


They sit together on the board of directors of 99 class I 


11. F. N. Davis 

12. Fairfax Harrison 
13. W. W. Atterbury 
14. J. E. Reynolds. 
15. Chas. Steele 


Edward E. Browne, Congressional Record, Vol. 


THE GREAT DEPRESSION 49 


16. Howard Elliot 20. Julius Kruttschnitt 24. DeWitt Cuyler 
17. M. H. Smith 21. Chas. E. Ingersoll 25. H. Walters 
18. Chas. Hayden 22, E. A. Stotesbury 

19. A. H. Harris 23. E. V. Thayer 


And testifying before the United States Senate Committee 
on Interstate Commerce on April 17, 1922, Mr. Jett W. Lauck, 
the noted economist, showed: 


“That the greater factors in American Industry, 
the railway equipment producers, the railway repair 
shops, the steel interests, the coal, cement and other 
basic material producers are closely bound together 
by inter-capital relations and interlocking directorates, 
coming to a focus in the banking house of Morgan & Co., 
and that the determination of their major policies cen- 
ters in and is controlled by a number of men scarcely 
larger than go to make up the administrative and exec- 
utive staff of the Federal Government.” 


The Outlook 


This was the line-up for the great conflict that was bound to 
come. In the strikes at the close of 1921, the workers began to 
show signs of effective resistance to the wage cutting and union- 
smashing onslaught of their employers and the Government. The 
capitalists and workers marshalled their forces for a battle to 
the bitter end. Among the working masses the feeling was that 
they had had enough of wage reductions and that their employ- 
ers had already driven them to the nethermost limits of endur- 
ance. The real fight came in the national strikes of 1922—the 
revolt of over a million workers in the textile mills, mines, and 
railway shops—the greatest strike wave in the history of the 
country. | 


CHAPTER III. 


THE TEXTILE WORKERS REVOLT 


“Mounted Cavalrymen, infantrymen with fixed 
bayonets and Deputy Sheriffs swinging riot clubs oc- 
cupied every street corner in the village of Hope, which 
is owned by Goddard Brothers. . .”!)—The New York 
Times, March 9, 1922, Page 4. 

“We have been slaves long enough to the mill own- 
ers who have gone mad over their profits. 

“Rhode Island has been a fool’s paradise, a State 
of oppression and cod-fish aristocracy. We have been 
the slaves of an invisible power. 

“The workers sleep four in a bed and never have 
enough to eat, while the sleek members of the Kalon 
Club advise them to save their money.”?)—1bid, state- 
ment by John H. Powers, Blackstone Valley strike 
leader. 


()* January 23rd the strike broke out in the Pawtucket Valley 

of Rhode Island. It spread like wildfire to the textile cen- 
ters of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont. 
Between January 15 and February 15, at least one half of the 
New England cotton industry was tied up. Armed guards, hos- 
tile State and local administrations, and troops equipped with the 
most fiendish devices of modern warfare, only steeled the spirit 
and solidified the ranks of the workers. 


1) N. Y. Times Investigation, March 9, 1922, page 4. 
2) From statement to N. Y. Times investigator, by John H. Powers, 
leader of the strikers in the Blackstone Valley. 
50 


THE TEXTILE WORKERS REVOLT o1 


Goaded on by the fear of desperate want and intolerable 
working conditions and determined to challenge the unbridled 
tyranny of the textile barons, close to 100,000 workers deserted 
the mills. Italian, Polish, French, Canadian, Portuguese, Jewish 
and American workers, women, girls and men, organized and 
unorganizeed, spontaneously rallied to strike against the ukase 
of their employers for a wage reduction of 20% and a 54-hour 
week. Within sixteen months their wages had been cut 42%. 


Issues of the Strike 


The wage cut ordered by the mill owners was part and parcei 
of the general, concerted campaign of wage reductions instituted 
by the employers thruout the country. Bitter determination 
characterized the onslaught of the capitalists to rob the workers 
of the conditions won by them during the war. In New Hamp- 
shire the 48-hour week was established in February 1919. The 
textile barons were determined to deprive the workers of this 
gain. When the war was on the employers made fabulous pro- 
fits. They went mad overetheir gigantic dividends. In this at- 
tack on the workers, they were further emboldened by the help- 
lessness and timidity the workers presented in the last wage cut. 
Also, the capitalists were determined to nip in the bud any signs 
of preparation manifested by the workers. On December 2, 
1921, eight independent unions merged in the Federated Textile 
Workers of America. 

During the war some textile operators had as many as 
three dividend periods a year. Even in 1921, the year of darkest 
depression, the Pacific Mills paid their stockholders enough 
dividends to advance the wages of the employees, at least 25%. 
In about a year this company paid $2,400,000 in dividends. The 
same rate was to be continued in 1922 and the workers were to 
pay this tribute by increased labor and decreased pay. This 


52 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


company increased its capitalization by 33 1/3% in 1919. Yet, 
it is today paying dividends at the rate of 12%. The Pacific Mills 
were among the first to capitalize war profits by the now popular 
method of stock dividends. 


Another illustration of the gigantic profits reaped by the 
textile barons is seen in the finances of the Amoskeag Corpora- 
tion, the largest cotton mill in the world. This company made 
a net profit of $30,000,000 in ten years. In 1921 it paid its 
dividends at the rate of 75% on the capitalization of 1907. With- 
in the last 15 years it has put away a surplus of over $37,000,000 
and has, besides, increased its capitalization from $4,000,000 to 
$44,500,000. Jerome C. Davis of Dartmouth, has thus pictured 
the “poverty” of the Amoskeag. 


“At the same time that the (Amoskeag) corpora- 
tion was reducing wages and increasing its hours, it had 
only a few months before increased dividends. Until 
January, 1912, the quarterly dividend on common stock 
was 7oc. From that date to April, 1919, it was $1.00. 
From February, 1920, to Mayg1l920, it was $1.25, and 
from February 1921, to the present time, it has been 
$1.50. In 1907 the company declared a 44% stock 
dividend. In 1919 three shares of common and two of 
preferred were exchanged in place of each single share. 
In 1919 there was a 100% stock dividend on the com- 
mon, so that since the organization there has been a con- 
tinual increase in the amount of stock and continual 
increase in the dividends on the increased number of 
shares. 


“The sum of $100 invested in the Amoskeag in 
1897 would have been worth on the market today over 
$1,000 and would have received in dividends over $670. 
If a mill worker in 1897 would have been able to in- 
vest $500 in the stock of the company and had kept it, 
together with his dividends he would now have over 
$9,000. Said a Manchester Banker, ‘One thousand 


THE TEXTILE WORKERS REVOLT 53 


dollars invested in Amoskeag in 1911 would have been 
worth on the market today over $8,500’.’) 


Professor Davis analyzes the problem very accurately when 
he says: 


<4 


. . . This method is, first a constant increase of 
outstanding stock, a pyramiding of securities on which 
dividends must be paid; second, a tendency to increase 
the rate of dividends paid in prosperous years and a 
reluctance to decrease them in periods of depression. 
What makes this practice extremely unethical, is that 
prosperous years are used as the basis for inflation of 
securities and dividends. Subsequently, in periods of 
depression, the company has a choice between several 
alternatives. It can stop paying dividends which would 
reduce the value of its stock on the market; or it can 
take from surplus which might have the same effect; 
or it can reduce wages and increase hours, which will 
tend to increase stock values. The Amoskeag Corpora- 
tion has over $17,000,000 in United States Liberty 
Bonds. It has other quick assets which bring up the 
total to over $37,000,000. The company reports net 
quick assets of over $133 a share for the preferred. 
If the plant is included and each spindle is valued at 
$50—although now worth $75—each share of common 
has a book value of $333 a share. Yet the company says 
it is necessary to make some radical departure to meet 
Southern competition. The directors are unwilling to 
reduce either surplus or dividends. The result is that 
wages must be reduced and hours lengthened. In other 
words, during prosperity years, the capital side of the 
business is enormously increased, but in years of de- 
pression it is not correspondingly decreased. 

“This is true not alone for the Amoskeag Com- 
pany; it is a well-nigh universal phenomenon.) (Our 
Italics). 


3) Jerome Davis, N. Y. Times Current History, October 1922, page 23. 
4) Ibid, Page 23-24, from financial figures presented in “The Ameri- 
can Wool and Cotton Reporter.” 


24 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


During the strike the workers repeatedly challenged the 
manufacturers to open their books to any chosen impartial body. 
The workers agreed to return to the mills immediately, if this 
body would find that a “fair” profit was endangered by a con- 
tinuation of the old wages and hours. The answer of the textile 
operators was a flat refusal. The agent of the Amoskeag is re- 
ported to have replied: 


“It is nothing but Socialism for a person to say 
that the public has any right to inquire as to how much 
money a firm makes or how much it lays by for ex- 
pansion.”>? 


The cry of these “poor” corporations that they must reduce 
wages and lengthen the working hours to meet Southern compe- 
tition, was just so much more sand thrown into the eyes of the 
workers. From the official figures of the American Cotton Manu- 
facturers’ Association, we find that the following were the weekly 
wage scales in the North and South in June, 1921: 


Grade of Worker North South 
Skilled male $21.78 $16.65 
Unskilled male 18.08 10.99 
Composite 18.71 13.99 
Women 15.61 11.65 


W. D. Adams, Secretary-Treasurer of the American Cotton 
Manufacturers’ Association, in a letter to E, F. Green, Treasurer 
of the Pacific Mills of Lawrence, pointed out that the wages of 
the Southern workers are on a par with those of the Northern, 
when the expense for the upkeep of the mill workers’ houses were 
added to the workers’ income. But he further said that the wages 
in the North should be higher “Because of the more rigorous 


Ae a 


5) Ibid, page 24. 


THE TEXTILE WORKERS REVOLT D0 


climate, the lack of garden and truck facilities and additional 
compensation Southern operatives receive in Southern Mills due 
to comparatively free house rent, electric lights, water works and 
sewerage, cheap fuel and the like . . . as an item in the cost of 
production. I beg to say that a careful investigation by the Ameri- 
can Cotton Manufacturers’ Association determined the increased 
compensation of Southern mill operatives on account of village 
expense to be $4.36 per operative per week.” Thus the Southern 
wage was only about 35c less per week than the Northern wage 
was before the 20% wage cut was ordered. Also there is more 
regular employment in the South, because its market is more 
steady, for, as it has been pointed out by the Census Bureau in 
its study of the Textile Industry, the South turns out mainly 
such staple heavy cloths as, ginghams, staple calicoes, denims, 
drills, and heavy ducks. Furthermore, the individual output 
per worker per working day in the North is of a better quality 
and. greater quantity than in the South. Mr. Adams also ‘ad- 
mitted that the Southern owners would follow the example of 
the Northern manufacturers and cut wages. The workers would 
thus be in a vicious circle. The representatives of the workers 
pointed out that the wage cut of 20% would immediately give 
the Northern workers a lower wage than that of the Southern by 
from 8-22% depending on whether the 48-hour week would be 
maintained. 

In the hearing on the 48-hour bill before the Rhode Island 
Legislature it was proved that more than half of the cotton mill 
spindles are in Massachusetts where there is a 48-hour law in 
effect. Besides, a considerable portion of the capital of the New 
England and Southern mills is interlocked. For instance, the 
Consolidated Textile Corporation of New York owns 750,000 
spindles in the South and this same Consolidated Company owns 
the only mills in New England which may be said to turn out 
goods that might meet Southern competition in the market: 


56 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


The Workers—Slaves 


What made these huge profits possible? Who produced 
these dividends? The answer is: The starvation wages and the 
living and employment conditions forced upon the textile workers 
made these profits possible. The exploited workers created 
these dividends. 


Before this cut was announced, the yearly average wage, ac- 
cording to so conservative an authority as the National Industrial 
Conference Board, was $1,085.44. In November 1919 it had 
found that $1,385.79 per year was the minimum needed for a liv- 
ing in Lawrence, Mass. In October, 1919, it had found that a 
wage of $1,267.76 per year was the minimum needed in Fall Riv- 
er, Mass. Since then, it is true, the cost of living had dropped 
somewhat, but keeping in mind the 42% cut in wages made dur- 
ing the depression, it is obvious that the overwhelming majority 
of the textile workers were faced with living conditions far be- 
low the minimum levels set by the most conservative authorities. 

The New York Times investigator found that the average 
weekly wage of common labor was $15; semi-skilled and skilled 
labor $17 to $18. Only a few reached thirty dollars per week. Out 
of these earnings they often paid back to the company in rent as 
high as $25 to $30 per month. In many instances the mother, 
father, and one or two children were compelled to work in order 
to earn the bare necessities of life for the family. 


The Amalgamated Textile Workers engaged the Labor 
Bureau, Inc., to make a survey of the cotton industry regarding 
wages and profits. This competent authority, taking the share 
received by the workers in 1914 and the purchasing power of 
the textile workers’ dollar in that year as a basis, and assuming 
that the amount received then was sufficient, and that the worker 
had continuous employment, found that for the period of 1914. 
1921 the cotton mill workers of the whole United States, fell 


$756,321,000 below the basis of “normalcy.” At the same time 
the corporations averaged profits at the rate of 29.6 per cent on 


THE TEXTILE WORKERS REVOLT 


inflated capital. 


The Living Conditions 


A New York Times investigator making a survey of the 


strike had found that: 


Co. 


“There was evidence of unsanitary and deplorable 
living conditions everywhere. Several villages were en- 
tirely owned by the mill owners, who controlled every- 
thing, including the church that the workers went to 
worship in, and the ball park and fair grounds where 
they found amusement. 

“In practically every town, the mill owners check 
out the worker’s meagre pay from 75c. to $5 a week 
house rent and his milk bill, and in many instances his 
grocery bill, contracted in the company store.”®) 


Said one striker to this investigator: 


“We own nothing here (the village of Hope) except 


- our skin. The Goddards own every stick of wood in 


the village. They own the Methodist-Episcopal church 
over there, and Rev. Mary Sampson, their preacher, is 
telling us to go to work. The twenty-five that went back 
to work were members of her Congregation.” 


Jackson, the adjoining town, is owned by B. B. & R. Knight 


The New York Times investigator goes on to say: 


“After being shown some of the badly kept dwell- 
ings of the Knight Company workers for which they 
paid rents ranging from 75c. to $3.25 a week, the visi- 


- tors were shown the beautiful stock barns of the com- 


pany located on the hills overlooking the valley. 


“““Here you see beautiful cattle sheds’, said Mr. 
Flannigan. “They are electric-lighted, steam-heated, 


6) N. Y. Times, March 9, 1922. 


38 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


everything is sanitary and the cows are given attention 
by special attendants. 
““They treat their cattle better than employees’.” 


The tyranny of the textile barons and their control of the 
local and State governments is at least as bad, if not worse, than 
in the steel and coal areas. 

In March 1921, the New York Globe engaged Mr. Wesley W. 
Stout to investigate the conditions in the textile area. His find- 
ings were substantially as follows: 


1) The textile barons rule with an iron hand. Their 
dictatorship is as arrogant and rigorous as that of the 
feudal overlords. There is a vicious system of absentee 
ownership and “The mill owners exercise a feudal 
authority as complete as that of a medieval baron. This 
may explain why there were no labor unions in the Val- 
ley and no strikes.” Mr. Stout found that for one hun- 
dred and ten years, the Pawtucket Valley did not have 
a trade union, a lockout or a strike with exception of 
two localized affairs in the recent years. 

2) In the strike area we have a veritable backwash 
of civilization worse than the slums of New York City. 

3) Except for the supervisors, the workers still 
live in the houses set up by the predecessors of the pres- 
ent textile tyrants in 1810. 

“As the company houses do not appear on the . 
books as a profitable investment, the company paints, 
papers and repairs them as seldom as possible. As the 
companies own most of the property in each village, 
many of the villages have no sewerage system and only 
one or two a public water system. 

“There is no collection of garbage and rubbish. 
The windows are without screens, and wells adjoin hi- 
deous outhouses and stables. Oil lamps light these 
houses, the only change since 1810 being from whale 
oil to kerosene. In the older houses—most of those 
occupied by the poorer paid workers, antedate the Civil 
War and some date back a century. The roofs often 


THE TEXTILE WORKERS REVOLT 59 


leak, the timbers are rotting, the walls ooze water, plas- 
ter is falling and the cracks are stopped up with soap or 
cotton waste.” 

4) A vicious spy system is in force. Any worker 
who manifests the slightest spirit of protest, is exiled 
not only from the mills, but oftentimes from the village 
or Valley. 

5) The textile barons, almost all of whom do not 
even live in the state, have chosen state legislators, con- 
gressmen, senators and governors. 


Of this condition, Professor Jerome Davis of Dartmouth 
College, said: 


“It might be noted at this point that the Amoskeag, 
in stating that its purse had ever. been ready to the up- 
building of the State and City, spoke the plain, unvar- 
nished truth, for outside of the Boston and Maine Rail- 
road there has been no power in the state which has been 
anywhere near so potent. As a matter of fact, all the 
directors of the corporation, with the exception of one, 
live outside the State, and that one spends his winters © 
in Florida. Senator Moses refused to talk with a union 
representative on the ground that he was not a citizen 
of New Hampshire. . . ”” 


The capitalists have devised the most cruel methods of sweat- 
ing their workers and intensifying exploitation. Every dollar 
of their profits is merely the congealed sweat and blood of their 
wage slaves. Apropos of this The New York Times investigator 
has said: 


“These efficiency experts go around the plant, time 
the work of various employees with a stop watch, and 
learn just how much work each man or woman can do 
in a day. After several tests, the ‘systematizers’ take 
the maximum efficiency record of the worker and set 
that as the daily standard that he must live up to. If it is 


7) Current History, October 1922, page 22. 


60 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


found that the worker has some spare time, he is com- 
pelled to aid in other work in order that every minute 
of his time in the mill may be taken up. Workers who 
decline to accept the standard set by the factory expert 
or fall behind the schedule are discharged, it is said.”®) 


The Workers Revolt. 


Against such unspeakable living and employment conditions 
the workers revolted. 

Despite overwhelming odds, the strikers put up an heroic 
struggle. They sprung a complete surprise on their employers, 
by the readiness with which they deserted the mills, the numbers 
that responded to the strike call and the length of time they were 
ready to stay out. In some localities, the strike lasted over 
thirty-five weeks. In some instances it is still being waged against 
the 54 hour week. The textile strike was the first strike since 
the “grand offensive” began where the workers displayed such a 
thrilling spirit of struggle and effective resistance to the enemy— 
their employers and their Government. 


Here is a description of the spread of the strike by a worker: 


“In the little village of Natick, there was a local 
of the Amalgamated Textile Workers of America. They 
succeeded in striking the big mill of the B. B. & R. 
Knight Company on the morning the cut was to go into 
effect. The strikers then marched to two adjoining mills 
and struck them. A speaker was sent from the Provi- 
dence local to the mass meeting of the strikers that af- 
ternoon. “The other workers are as anxious as you to 
resist this cut. Go ask them to join you,’ he said. The 
“Iron Battalion” was formed forthwith. The other 
mills were called upon and the whole of the Pawtucket 
Valley was tied up 100% in a few days. The Amal- 
gamated Textile Workers of America enrolled thous- 
ands of members. 


8) N. Y. Times, March 10, 1922, page 5. 


THE TEXTILE WORKERS REVOLT 61 


“In the adjoining Blackstone Valley, things went 
slower—not that the rank and file of the workers willed 
it so—but the red tape of the officialdom held them in 
check. In that Valley, the United Textile Workers of 
America have a few locals of different crafts or depart- 
ments. These naturally wanted their national officers 
to take the helm. But the International President was 
then sick and other ‘important’ incidents happened to 
hinder action, so that nearly two weeks went by before 
the mills in the Blackstone Valley started to come out. 
Their strike was not so prompt and clear cut as in the 
Pawtucket Valley, but eventually they tied up all the 
mills and established a solid front.’ 


One feature of the strike was the very effective picketing. 
In the Pawtucket Valley, the workers organized the “Iron Bat- 
talion”—a picket group of more than 200 strong. Most of these 
were ex-soldiers. This greatly heartened the workers at Natick. 
These workers would march up and down the sidewalks before 
the mills without saying a word. They would wave their hands 
and handkerchiefs to those within the mill’s stockade. They 
would also demonstrate before the State House for the 48-hour 
bill. How effective this picketing was is evidenced in the im- 
pression of The New York Times investigator. He said: 


“Undaunted by the presence of the soldiers, the Bat- 
talion now assembles every morning and marches thru 
Natick streets and to neighboring mills, led by a man 
swinging a bell. Singing, and swinging sticks and 
canes, the marchers generally keep up their parade until 
assured that no effort is being made to start the mills. 
Then they disband, leaving a few on picket duty ready 
to sound the alarm at the first attempt of any mill to 
operate. 


“Because of the threatening [the investigator un- 
doubtedly meant effective] tactics of the ‘Iron Battalion’ 


9) W. E. Vinyarn, Labor Herald, April 1922, page 9. 


62 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


which has become known from one end of the State to 
the other, the only machine gun company in the strike 
zone is in Natick where it has mounted guns on the roofs 
of the big mills.”?” 


John J. Thomas, leading the strike for the United Textile 
Workers, organized mass picketing and demonstrations of thous- 
ands. These “flying squadrons” as they were called were very 
effective and the employers howled to their protector, Governor 
San Souci of Rhode Island, that such picketing was illegal. 


The problem of feeding the workers was a gigantic one. 
The strikers did not have the savings to help them stay out so 
long. In the Pawtucket Valley, the Amalgamated Relief Com- 
mittee was feeding over six thousand daily. The United Textile 
Workers expended close to $750,000; most of which was donated 
by other unions. An illustration of this solidarity of the workers 
is seen in the following occurrence at the last convention of the 


United Textile Workers described by President McMahon. 


“Towards the latter moments of the Convention, or- 
ganizer Thomas presented two of our members who were 
shot down by gunmen at the Jenckes Spinning Company 
plant on the morning of February 21, 1922, in the pres- 
ence of the Mayor of the City of Pawtucket. 


“One with four fingers shot completely away on his 
right hand, and the other with his right side paralyzed 
for life, along with ten or twelve young girls who were 
shot and wounded in various parts of the body. 


“The convention was overwhelmed and a magnifi- 
cent donation by the delegates. many of whom were 
strikers, showed their keen sympathy. But this was not 
all. The delegates from the Full Fashioned Hosiery 
Knitters, Union 706, quickly got together and-selected 
a spokesman who requested the approximate cost of the 
operation that would be necessary to give the young man 


10) N. Y. Times, March 9, 1922. 


THE TEXTILE WORKERS REVOLT 63 


who was paralyzed, a fighting chance to be again re- 
stored to full physical manhood. 


“He was told that it would be approximately $1,000, 
and quickly the answer shot back: ‘Send him to the 
place selected for the operation and forward your bill 
of $1,000 to Local Union 706, Philadelphia’.”!) 


The co-operatives of New England also rendered considerable 
aid to the strikers. The Co-operative Bakeries of New Bedford, 
Lynn, Brockton, Worcester and Providence daily sent thousands 
of loaves of bread into the Pawtucket Valley. These bakeries 
were furnished with flour and huge quantities of cans of fruits 
and vegetables by the Purity Co-operative Association of Pater- 
son, N. J. . 

The New Textile Worker, official organ of the Amalgamated 
Textile Workers, in its review of the strike maintained that to 
more than anything else : 


“, . . the winning of this great strike is due to 
industrial unionism. Even in Manchester, New Hamp- 
shire, at the plant of the Amoskeag Company, where 
the strike was in charge of an organization that is not 
primarily industrial unionist in form or spirit, the 
strike was an industrial union strike—every worker in 
the mills was out. On any other basis it would have 
lasted six weeks, but would have ended quickly in de- 
feat.” 


The Government Fights the Battles of the Employers. 


The textile bosses had expected an easy victory. They had 
staked their bets on the organizational chaos in the ranks of the 
workers. But they were dazed by the fighting spirit of the work- 
ers. This imbued the employers with a fierce determination to 
win. Acute bitterness characterized their efforts to break the 


11) Foes F. McMahon, President of the United Textile Workers 
of America in the Textile Worker, October, 1922. 


64 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


strike. This bitterness and lust for vengeance was manifested 
by the degree to which they called on their government officials 
to break the strike for them and by the extent to which their local 
and State administrations gave them wholehearted support. 


A. THE COURTS 


Injunctions played their part very effectively. The courts 
were liberal in donating them to their masters—the textile barons. 
We cite the following model injunction of the strike procured by 
the Jenckes Company, Crown Manufacturing Company, and the 
Dexter Yarn Company to enjoin picketing in Rhode Island. 


On June 12, 1922, the Superior Court of Providence, R. I., 
on the basis of the Supreme Court decision in the case of the 
American Steel Foundries v. the Tri-city Central Trades Council 
granted the above corporations this injunction asked for and 
said: 


“Courts have recognized that some refined types of 
intimidation are far more effective than threatened 
physical violence. . . 

“The picketing in all these cases was in mass or 
group led by a captain selected or approved by union 
leader Thomas. . .” ; 


The court recites the fact that at first the pickets numbered 
hundreds, but 


“Later, under the Sheriff’s regime, the Jenckes 
group, consisting of thirty pickets every nine minutes 
marched around the plant; and at Dexter, 25 or 50 
marched back and forth in two lines in front of the 
plant, so timing the march as to have the two lines 
meet in front of the entrance. . .” 


PO ES COTES aT i. SE 
BSS Desi A RT AO an 








The court branded this form of picketing as mass picketing 
and therefore declared it illegal and concluded by saying: 


THE TEXTILE WORKERS REVOLT 65 


“In the Court’s opinion, the preliminary injunc- 
tion should run against all picketing.’”!?) 

Thomas F. McMahon was arrested at Manchester, New Hamp- 
shire, in contempt of court, on June 30 for violating the injunc- 
tion. 

The interference of the courts with the picketing which was 
very effective, was a severe blow to the striking workers and a 
great help to the greedy employers. It prolonged the strike for 
many weeks and thus intensified the suffering of the workers. 
The capitalists were drawing their dividends as usual. No court 
orders interfered with them. 

The textile bosses also called upon the courts to empower 
them to evict the strikers living in the company houses. Deputy 
Sheriffs began to serve eviction notices in the Pawtucket Valley 
on April 29th. From the following press item, we get an 


impression of the brutality of the officials of the employing class 
Government: 


“Providence, R. I., May 2.—Deputy Sheriffs re- 
moved today the houshold goods of August Van Leere, 
a Belgian citizen and a striker, from a hill tenement 
at Hope Village owned by the Hope Company, and left 
them on a public highway, a thousand feet away. Chief 
of Police Riley of Scituate, in which Hope Village is 
situated, declared that if the goods were not removed 
within 24 hours he would sell them at public auc- 
tion.””!) 


B. THE MILITARY FORCES 


Two troops of cavalry and a machine gun company were 
sent into the strike zone by Governor San Souci of Rhode Island 
at the request of the Crompton and B. B. & R. Knight Co., Inc.— 
the largest operators in the Pawtucket. The troops entered the 


12) Law and Labor, July 1922. 
13) New York Times, April 3, 1922, Page 25. 


66 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Valley on February 20th. On February 21st, on the eve of Wash- 
ington’s birthday, one sympathizer was killed, two were seriously 
wounded and five were less critically hurt by riot-gun fire at the 
mill of the Jenckes Spinning Company. Mayor Robert G. Ken- 
yon is charged with having directed this attack. | 

Subsequently, four companies of Coast Artillery were rushed 
to the Blackstone Valley. By March 7th, there were 600 Na- 
tional Guardsmen on strike duty in Rhode Island—five com- 
panies of coast artillery, two troops of cavalry, and a machine 
gun company. ‘This strikebreaking army was maintained by the 
Government at the cost of three thousand dollars a day from 
funds especially appropriated by the State Legislature for this 
purpose. 

On March 14th, Sheriff Jonathan Andrews put a ban on mass 
picketing in all of Providence County—Providence, Pawtucket 
and Woonsocket. To enforce this order the County Deputy 
Sheriffs were armed with repeating rifles to mow down the work- 
ers at their first attempt to prevent strikebreakers from taking 
their jobs. According to Sheriff Andrews’s own statement, the 
mill owners paid for the services of many of these deputies, a 
large number of whom had previously been discharged from the 
police force for unfitness. 

When several hundred Blackstone-Valley strikers attempted 
to arrange a demonstration before the Capitol in Providence in 
favor of the Lavander 48-hour Bill, Lieut.-Governor Harold J. 
Gross ordered them barred from the Senate Chamber and the 
galleries. 


“It was the first time, so far as State House attaches 
recalled, that such action had been taken.’ 


Only those with special cards from the Lieutenant-Governor 
were permitted to enter. No workers were present. 


14) New York Times, April 1, 1922, Page 2. 


THE TEXTILE WORKERS REVOLT 3 67 


How effective these strikebreaking measures instituted by 
the Government in behalf of the textile barons were, is evidenced 
by the following press dispatch: 


“Pawtucket, R. I.—Following the withdrawal of 

... part of the armed guard ai the Brunel Textile Mill, 

two hundred and fifty strikebreakers working there de- 

clared a strike. The mill owners are reported to have 

sent to New York for men to replace the striking strike- 
breakers.””}5) 

Governor Cox of Massachusetts followed the example set 
by San Souci of Rhode Island and the Chief Executive of New 
Hampshire emulated both of them. On June 6th, 19 workers 
were arrested during a demonstration in front of the Amoskeag 
Mill. Open air meetings were prohibited. This strikebreaking 
order was subsequently amended to limit the open-air meetings 
only to those addressed by local speakers. In Manchester, strik- 
ers were prohibited from sitting on the porches of their homes 
and even from looking out of the windows while strikebreakers 
were going to and from the mill. Strikers were not permitted 
to talk to strikebreakers. But strikebreakers were allowed to 
heap upon strikers the vilest and most abusive insults. The strik- 
ers were not allowed to organize tag-days or house-to-house col- 
lections. The Government thus attempted to break the strike by 
statving out the workers. However, when the Amoskeag strike- 
breakers requested permission for holding a house-to-house can- 
vass to convince the strikers to return to work, the Governor 
gladly assented. 


C. THE BURNS DETECTIVE AGENCY TAKES A HAND 


Nor was the frame up neglected by the bosses. The infamous 
Burns of the Department of Justice came to their rescue. As late 
as September Ist, James D. Meehan of the Burns Agency 


15) Federated Press Despatch, July 26, 1922. 


68 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


of New York announced in the Providence Journal that: “Half 
a dozen suspects” are under surveillance. He said: “Arrests may 
soon be made.” His threats were based on the “findings” of his 
“bomb expert,” William E. Clark. Apropos of this attempt to 
frame up workers and terrify them into surrender, conducted by 
America’s most notorious detective agency at the head of which 
is the Head of the Bureau of Investigation of the United States 
Department of Justice, the Amalgamated Texyle Workers is- 
sued the following enlightening declaration which reads in part: 


“The Burns men, of whom there are many others 
scattered over the State, according to their own an- 
nouncement, refuse to tell who their clients are, but they 
claim to have been investigating the several explosions 
that have occurred in both the Blackstone and the Paw- 
tucket Valleys and a number of fires which they assert 
were incendiary. 


“These all took place several weeks ago. The ex- 
plosion that attracted most attention was that which oc- 
curred at the dam of the Flat River Reservoir at Co- 
ventry on June 12th. The explosive used there was so 
placed that in discharging it jammed the gate and abso- 
lutely precluded the possibility of water escaping. Had 
the gate been blown apart, millions of gallons of water 
would have flooded the Pawtucket Valley and inundated 
a dozen mill villages. 

“Leaders of the Amalgamated Textile Workers of 
America, conducting the Pawtucket Valley strike, pointed 
to this as bearing out the suspicion that the explosive 
had been placed there by agents or friends of the em- 
ployers. 

“On June 22nd a ‘queer’ explosion occurred at 
Crompton Village, in the Pawtucket Valley. It tore a 
hole in the ground in a vacant lot 35 feet from the 
Crompton Public Library. No damage was done to the ~ 
employer’s property, as the spot is 50 yards from the 
Crompton Velvet Mill. What made the exposion look 
to union officials like the bosses’ plant, was the addi- 


THE TEXTILE WORKERS REVOLT 69 


tional fact that the harmless spot where it occurred was 

directly in the path of the army searchlight set up on 

the roof of the mill.” 

But despite this energetic and ferocious campaign waged by 
the Government in the strike area, the workers displayed a re- 
markable tenacity and held fast. Machine guns, coast artillery 
squads, riot guns, clubs, local and State administrations, and a 
church and press owned outright by the textile bosses, could not 
_awe the strikers. No. Not even the Government could break 
the strike! ad 


The Strike Settlements 


As the strike went on, it became a contest of endurance, a 
tug of war between the bread-hungry workers and the dividend- 
hungry capitalists. And in this fight the workers showed firmer 
resistance. In spite of the organizational chaos prevailing in the 
ranks of the workers, in spite of the bestiality characterizing the 
strikebreaking services of the Government, the strikers hurled 
back the onslaught and maintained their front. 

The first break came in Lawrence, Mass., the key to the tex- 
tile industry of New England. On August 28th, the Pacific and 
four other textile mills accepted a return to the old wage scale 
after a bitter struggle lasting nearly five months. Settlements 
followed in Rhode Island and the other centers. Some operators 
even raised wages above the pre-strike level. Discrimination 
against active strikers and insistence on a 54-hour week have de- 
layed settlements in several instances. 


The Unions and the Strike 


Spirited battles against oppression and exploitation are not 
new to the New England textile workers. The history of the 
class struggle in Lawrence is a story of unequalled sacrifice and 
almost superhuman heroism. 


70 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


At the pitch of enthusiasm in their struggle, the union mem- 
bership would swell; then, it would wither away at an almost 
equal pace. Organizationally, the workers have been hopelessly 
divided. On the eve of the last strike there were at least fifteen 
unions in the field. Chief among these were the Amalgamated 
Textile Workers, the United Textile Workers, the One Big Union 
of Ben Legere, the Workers’ International Industrial Union, the 
Industrial Workers of the World, the American Federation of 
Textile Operatives and the National Loom Fixers Association. It 
is this canker of petty factionalism and extreme dualism afflicting 
the body-unionism of the textile workers that accounts for their 
meekness in accepting without any resistance the first wage cut 
of 2214%. It was the hope that the capitalists put in such 
rank division in the fold of the workers, that encouraged them 
to make another slash in wages and it was this dualism which 


kept the workers in a state of unpreparedness when the strike 
broke out. 


The strike in Lawrence, for instance, came two months after 
the outbreak in the Pawtucket Valley. Yet the workers there 
were unprepared when they did decide to fight. This condition 
is especially bad when one considers the fighting spirit of the 
workers involved. In Lawrence the internal wrangling was very 
costly to the workers. At the outset of the strike, unionism had 
a weak hold. And in this weakness, the workers were divided 
between the United Textile Workers and the One Big Union. For 
one week the two unions directed the strike thru a joint council. 
Then President McMahon, of the United Textile Workers grew 
tired of unity in the ranks of the workers, and withdrew from the 
council. Ben Legere of the One Big Union, went McMahon one 
worse. Instead of making an effort to heal the breach, he, in 
true dual unionist fashion, widened it. Throughout the strike he 
waged a bitter campaign in the press against the United Textile 


THE TEXTILE WORKERS REVOLT 71 


Workers. Sharp recriminations and picketing of each others 
meetings, were only some of the attendant evils manifested. 


That the strike could have ended successfully weeks before 
it did, is evident from the very facts of the struggle. When the 
Pacific Mills, the largest in Lawrence, threw out feelers for a 
settlement, there was no single union representing the workers 
to deal with the owners. However, compelled by the very forces 
of the struggle, thére was again formed a joint council. This 
time it included the United Textile Workers, the National Loom 
Fixers’ Association, the One Big Union, and the American Feder- 
ation of Textile Operatives. At the mere announcement of this fe- 
deration, the textile barons declared the old wage scale restored 
without further negotiations. This backdown by the employers, 
came even before the workers could actually resort to practical 
joint action. 


The why and wherefore of this division in the ranks of the 
workers imbued with so valiant a fighting spirit is presented in 
the following view of the situation by the Labor Herald, official 
organ of the Trade Union Educational League. 


“This splendid spirit of the rank and file could 
have won the fight in short order, but for the criminal 
stupidity of the textile unions. When the need for a 
solid front was so apparent, the ‘leaders’ of the textile 
unions were guilty of keeping Labor’s forces divided. 
Each union tinkered with the fight in its own manner. 
No efforts were made to unite the workers of the Black- 
stone Valley with those of the Pawtucket Valley. In- 

‘stead of healing the many divisions that existed thru- 
out the textile labor unions, the officialdom endeavored 
to intensify them.” 


16) Labor Herald, November 1922—Page 21—‘‘Chaos in the Textile 
Industry” by H. J. C. | 


72 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Significance and Outlook 


The revolt of the textile workers was the first battle in the 
brilliant campaign of resistance, the giant strikes of 1922, against 
the savage offensive of the employing class aimed at lowering 
wages, raising the hours of labor and smashing the unions. When 
the textile workers rose to battle their exploiters, they were fight- 
ing not only their own fight, but the fight of all the workers as 
well. The remarkable struggle put up by the workers in this strike 
has had a buoyant effect on the militant spirit of all the workers. 
The textile strike, thru the very tenacity and determination of the 
workers, was the first important setback administered to the em- 
ployers in their anti-labor drive. As such, it is to be recorded as 
one of the most glorious battles in the annals of our labor history 
and one of the most heroic strikes waged by the workers in the 
United States. 


Temporarily, at least, the strike wave in the textile industry 
has subsided. There is a lull in the storm. However, a new 
storm, more furious, than the last one is on its way. ‘The textile 
barons, completely surprised by the magnificent resistance of the 
workers, and driven on by the fear of a loss of profits due to a 
shut-down during the present flurry of business prosperity, 
yielded and withdrew their order for lower pay and a. longer 
working day. But they are already preparing for the next battle. 
Mr. J. H. Tregoe, Executive Manager of the National Association 
of Credit Men, has aptly called the present peace merely an 
“emergency settlement.”!7) 

What shall the workers do? How shall they prepare for 
the coming struggle? 


The strike has greatly swelled the ranks of the unions. The 
little organization they had at the outbreak of the strike has been 
greatly strengthened. The time to learn from the mistakes of 


17) New York Times, October 9, 1922. 


THE TEXTILE WORKERS REVOLT 73 


the past is now. It is urgent that the workers immediately lay 
the basis for unity of action in peace and in war. The proposal 
following, that of the Trade Union Educational League, is prac- 
tical and necessary: 


“If ever there was need for amalgamation and the 
fusing together of unions, that need is now in the tex- 
tile industry. This needed unity can only be achieved 
if the rank and file in the industry get busy and demand 
it. 


“That should be the immediate program of every 
live union man in the textile unions.””!®) 


And what the workers can expect from the Government in 
such a struggle is obvious. The full military and judiciary 
forces of the Government, the powerfully organized brutality 
and violence in the form of courts and armed strikebreakers in 
and out of uniform, will be unleashed against the workers. The 
strikebreaking record of the Government in this textile strike is 
noteworthy for its blackness and sinister recklessness. 

Because of this vicious alignment of dollar and bayonet, 
textile overlords and robed tyrants, the need for a united front 
is greater than ever before. To send small, poorly armed bands 
against the serried ranks of the employing class and its protec- 
tors, armed to the teeth with all the hellish devices of modern 
warfare, would be suicide—stupid and criminal. The workers 
must pit unity against unity—then victory will be theirs, 


18) Labor Herald—June 1922, Page 29, 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE—AN ARMY AT WAR 

“... Finally, these men, already harassed and un- 
able to earn a wage to live, as distinct from a living 
wage, left their work when their existing insufficient 
incomes were slashed and a hope for improved condi- 
tions for themselves and their babies was flatly denied 
them. 

“Scores of these miners, poverty-stricken and un- 
able to go thru the coming winter unless help is given 
them, poured out such tales of suffering and mistreat- 
ment as would melt any heart except that in the stony 
bosom of a coal baron. We have seen in the tents, in 
the hencoops, and in the stables where the miners and 
their families sought shelter after having been sum- 
marily evicted from their homes by the coal and iron 
police, hungry babies and women whose feet were bare 
and bleeding and whose limbs were thinly clad. . . 

“No Egyptian Pharoah, rearing for his glory a tow- 
ering monument, ever drove men harder than these min- 
ers were driven. No Czar was ever more autocratic than 
these predatory interests of big business.”)) (Our 
Italics). 


Wa miners strike, there is fight. And when miners fight 

there is war! Hostile State and Federal Governments, 
armed strikebreakers in and out of uniform, injunctions, gun- 
men, forced marches, evictions, legalized murder, and jails fill 


1) From the Report on Conditions in Somerset County, Pa., by the 
New York Municipal Investigating Committee, David Hirschfield, Director 
of Accounts, New York, Chairman. 

74. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 75 


the annals of the heroic struggles waged by the mine workers 
of America against capitalist exploitation and oppression. 


Clearing the Ground. 


Over 600,000 coal miners “downed tools” on April 1, 1922, 
in protest against drastic wage-reductions and degrading working 
conditions. 

The coal-operators picked the Spring of 1922 as the most 
appropriate moment for launching their campaign to crush the 
union. From every point of view this was a favorable time to 
them for a showdown. 

First of all, there were on April 1, according to the Report 
of the Director of the United States Geological Survey, 63 mil- 
lion tons"of bituminous coal on hand. This was a quantity suf- 
ficient for 55 days. With the summer months coming, this sup- 
ply looked big enough to the Operators to afford a chance to reap 
swollen profits on famine prices for a period longer than the 
workers could hope to stay out. They also counted on non- 
union miners to augment the supply sufficiently and continuously. 

The Operators were further emboldened by the fact that 
there were then over 4,000,000 unemployed. They counted on 
being able to recruit a vast horde of strikebreakers from this 
gigantic industrial reserve army. Besides, the coal magnates 
believed the union itself was in bad shape. Its treasury had 
been drained by costly litigation in the courts and the Mingo 
struggle of twenty-eight months entailing an expenditure of nearly 
$2,000,000. | 

For these reasons the mine owners were anxious to force 
a strike on the workers at this time. For the same reasons the 
miners. were equally anxious to avoid a strike. And for these 
very reasons the Government was anxious to help the Operators 
in their union-smashing plans by refusing to take any steps to 
prevent the strike. Despite the fact that it, the Government it- 


76 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


self, was a party to the agreement of 1920 providing for ar- 
bitration, it, the Government itself, not only didn’t prevent the 
Operators from violating the contract—an instrument that is 
officially sacred only when it can be turned against the work- 
ers—but even went out of its way totally to forget its own con- 
tractual obligations. 


Months before the outbreak of the strike it was plain that 
this would be the Government’s policy towards the strike issue 
in the mines. Congressman Huddleston pointed this out very 
clearly in January, 1922.2) And the Washington Herald said: 


“That a strike would seem inevitable in the bi- 
tuminous fields at the expiration of the miners’ present 
national agreement, March 31, is the belief of Secre- 
tary Hoover. If the bituminous miners walk out; say 
labor leaders, the anthracite miners will follow them, 
throwing 500,000 men into the strike. 


““There seems little possibility,’ Secretary Hoover 
said, ‘that any machinery might be set up to avoid the 
strike. The Government has taken no further steps to 
avoid the walkout. Unless something unforeseen oc- 
curs to adjust the difficulty, it seems that the stage is set 
for a strike.’ 


“The Government’s position has long been known 
to be that sooner or later there would have to be a show- 
down in the mine fields. Jts attitude is that if a strike 
must be, it must be, and the sooner the issue is dis- 
posed of, the better.”*) (Our Italics). 


In this officially inspired interview, in a paper whose inter- 
ests are largely controlled by Hoover himself, the cat is let out 
of the bag. The Government, like the Operators, wanted to see 
the strike come at this time. 


2) Congressional Record, January 21, 1922, page 1715. 
3) Washington Herald, January 20, 1922. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 77 


Breaking the Agreement. 


In March 1920, at the urgent solicitation of the Government 
through the Bituminous Coal Commission, the miners and Opera- 
tors entered into an agreement which, among other things, pro- 
vided for the holding of an Interstate Joint Conference prior to 
April 1, 1922, to adjust differences. This section read: 


“Resolved that an Interstate Joint Conference 
should be held prior to April 1, 1922; the time and 
place for holding such meeting to be referred to a com- 
mittee of the Operators and two members from each 
State herein represented, together with the Internation- 
al officials of the United Mine Workers of America.” 


This agreement covered the Central Competitive Field— 
Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Bound by this 
agreement, President Lewis of the United Mine Workers, as early 
as December 1921, called on the Operators to meet in Pittsburgh 
in January. This invitation the operators turned down. A simi- 
lar fate befell his February request for a meeting with represen- 
tatives of the miners to be held in Cleveland on March 2 in order 
to negotiate another two-year agreement. Thus, though con- 
tract-bound, many Operators spurned the call. Other Operators 
were ready to meet only District representatives and enter into 
local agreements. This policy was aimed at dividing the work- 
ers. The Operators knew that it would be much easier to op- 
press the miners if they were to face them divided than if they 
were to deal with them as one big unit on a national scale. The 
miners would not fall for this trap of their exploiters. 

Anent the breaking of this agreement even Secretary of Labor 
Davis, an un-hyphenated, one hundred per cent member of 
Harding’s Cabinet has been compelled to state that: 


“In fairness it must be said that the miners’ off- 
cials were willing and ready to go into the Conference 


78 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


agreed upon, but some of the Operators declined to 
meet. 

“The Operators and miners were bound to a Con- 
ference; that this Conference might have led to a new 
agreement, and the country might not have been con- 
fronted with a stoppage of coal production, a suspen- 
sion avoided, ample supplies of coal and a gradual re- 
duction of prices would have resulted. 

“I cannot but express keen disappointment at the 
failure of certain Operators to fulfill the terms of 
their obligation to meet in Conference with a view to 
peace in the coal industry for two years more.” 


In the face of this admission, the subsequent attitude and 
conduct of the Government throughout the mine strike is a lesson 
painful to the memory but most worthy of being learned. 


On the Eve of the Struggle 


Since 1896 the agreement in the Central Competitive Field 
has served as the basic wage agreement for the entire bituminous 
coal industry. 

Many Operators ordered wage reductions ranging from 20 
to 40 per cent. They ordered that the check-off system be dis- 
continued. The loss of the check-off would have dealt a mortal 
blow to unionism in the mining industry. The Operators knew 
this and they were therefore bent on abolishing this procedure. 
As Mr. Thomas H. Watkins, President of the Pennsylvania Coal 
and Coke Corporation, has said: 


“The check-off means collection by the operators, 
from the mine workers’ pay envelopes, of dues and as- 
sessments levied by the union. This the Operators con- 
sidered illegal and immoral, as the funds so collected 
were used to create a war chest for fighting the union 
Operators, and particularly for financing the miners’ 


4) Congressional Record, Vol. No. 91, p. 5328, March 31, 1922. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 79 


campaign for unionizing the balance of the coal fields 
of the country. The question is still undecided as to 
the Operators’ liability in being a party to collecting . 
these dues when any part of them is used to finance a 
campaign which interferes with the operations of non- 
union producers.”®) (Our Italics). 


As usual the capitalists here also find that unionization and 
a solidifying of the workers’ ranks are illegal and immoral. 

In reply, the miners demanded that the Basic Central Com- 
petitive Field Agreement, the check-off and the existing scale of 
wages continue. They also demanded a six-hour day, that is 
from “bank to bank,” inclusive of all the time spent in the mine, 
and a five-day week. This proposal was in effect only a plea 
for more steady employment, as the miners suffer severely from 
acute irregularity of employment. 

On March 15 a conference was held in New York City with 
the anthracite Operators and a request was made for a 20 per 
cent wage increase and the renewal of the contract which expired 
on March 31. The negotiations failed. The Operators “indig- 
nantly and vigorously” rejected the proposals of the workers and 
the anthracite miners fell in line with their brothers of the bi- 
- tuminous fields to strike on April 1st. 


The Sirike Begins. 


Hundreds of thousands of miners, anthracite and bituminous, 
unorganized as well as organized, left the pits on April 1. For 
the first time in their history the miners gave battle to their enemy 
on practically the entire national front. Especially inspiring 
was the conduct of the non-union bituminous miners. They 
answered the strike call en masse and flocked into the unions by 
the thousands. In the non-union fields controlled mainly by the 
United States Steel Corporation, in Fayette, Greene, and West- 


5) New York Times Current History, November 1922, page 216. 


80 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


moreland Counties of Western Pennsylvania, production was 
almost totally stopped. It was the heroic spirit ahd unflinching 
class loyalty of these unorganized miners that surprised the union 
men as well as the Operators and actually turned the tide in the 
struggle. 

How this unexpected but most needed and welcomed sup- 
port was obtained is vividly described in the Labor Herald by 
John Dorsey. 

“The Connellsville coke region had resisted unioni- 
zation for years; the H. C. Frick Company was a dictator 

of that region, and fixed wages, hours and working con- 

ditions. Feeney (an organizer of the U. M. W. of A.) 

laid his plans long in advance to pull this section of 

the miners out. Six weeks before the strike, he sent 

groups of picked men from the union fields into the 

Connellsville region to look for work. The companies 

were putting on more forces in anticipation of the 

strike. They thought these men were deserters from 

the union, looking for a job where the strike would not 

affect them, and gladly put them to work. But they 

were experienced organizers, men who knew how to do 
their work without the accompaniment of a brass band. 

The result was that when the strike came, tens of thous- 

ands of the supposedly non-union miners walked out 

with the union men, and immediately joined the organi- 
zation.”®) | 

Within two weeks after the strike was declared 35,000 of 
these previously unorganized miners joined the union in Western 
Pennsylvania, District 5 of the United Mine Workers of America. 
As the struggle went on the pre-strike talk of separate District 
agreements dabbled in by Farrington, President of the Illinois 
Miners, subsided. Much to the disappointment of the Operators. 
the miners did not brook any such talk and presented a united 
front along the whole line. 


6) John Dorsey in the Labor Herald, May 1922, Page 4. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 81 


By the middle of July the Department of Labor found that 
610,000 out of a total of 795,000 miners were on strike. In the 
anthracite fields of Pennsylvania the 155,000 anthracite miners 
struck one hundred per cent, and only 20,000 out of the 175,000 
bituminous miners remained at work. In the Standard Oil Prin- 
cipality of Colorado and in the Steel Trust Barony of West Vir- 
ginia thousands deserted the mines. In the face of an Anti- 
Strike Law 13,000 out of the total of 14,000 struck in Kansas. 
The miners of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, New 
Mexico, Ohio and Texas quit to a man. In so far as numbers 
and solidarity go this was the greatest strike that America has 
witnessed. It was the second great industrial strike in America, 
the Great Steel Strike of 1919 being the first. 


Another Comparison. 


The coal industry, like all other industries under capitalism, 
is running on the basis of having the worker turn out sufficient 
dividends to cover every period of the year, employment~and 
unemployment, deflation and inflation, depression and prosperity. 
No matter what name the capitalist experts give to the conditions 
of exploitation forced upon the workers, it remains an indisput- 
able fact that when the workingmen labor they must be contented 
with receiving little enough to permit a continuous flow of divi- 
dends. Any other condition, the official “economists” label as 
“abnormalcy.” This is the pith of the problem in every strike, 
in every struggle of the workers. But with the workers, the 
story is entirely different. When they work they get barely 
enough to maintain themselves anywhere near the minimum 
level of subsistence. When they are unemployed—they must 
starve. Today, industries are not considered prosperous on 
the basis of the workers receiving what is due to them. The sole 
basis of evaluating the “soundness” of an industry today is 
whether there is a steady flow of dividends into the pockets of the 


82 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


capitalists who -do nothing for a living except own, that is possess 
title to some means of production or exchange—a title guaran- 
teed by the full military and judiciary power of the State. 

This condition is particularly aggravated in the coal in- 
dustry. During the war the Operators were veritable ghouls. 
They ran riot in their profit-garnering. Said Wm. G. McAdoo, 
ex-Secretary of the Treasury: 


“The coal operators assert that I gave out con- 
fidential information when I stated that profits of the 
mine owners in 1917 ranged from 15 to 2000 per cent 
on capital stock before deduction of taxes. This was 
not confidential information. The Treasury Depart- 
ment may publish statistical matter of this sort at any 
time... In short, many coal Operators got back their 
entire invested capital several times out of their pro- 
fits in 1917, as shown by the reports, and must now 
be on velvet.””) 


As the war went on and the workers were dying on the 
battlefields of France and Flanders the merry dance of profits 
went on. The Federal Trade Commission found that: 


“Twenty-one companies in the smokeless fields of 
West Virginia produced in 1919, 6,664,502 and in the 
first nine months of 1920, 5,019,327 tons. . . 


“The rate of return of the individual companies | 
making up this group of 21 ranges in 1919 from a loss 
of 24 per cent on the investment for one company to a 
profit of 45 per cent. for another company. For the 
first nine months of 1920 the range of return on invest- 
ment was from a profit of 3 per cent. for one company 
to a profit of 268 per cent. for another company. The 
company making the profit of 268 per cent. was the 
same company which in 1919 had a loss of 24 per cent. 


7) Associated ‘Press Despatch, Philadelphia Public Ledger, November 


* 28, 1919, . 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 83 


The estimated annual rate for the whole of 1920 ranged 
from 4 per cent to 357 per cent on investment.’®) 


The above percentages are all based on the figures submitted 
by the coal operators themselves. The names of the individual 
operators are completely withheld and shielded from public 
knowledge. 

But even this condition did not.suit the Operators. They 
were determined to deny their much-beloved “public” even the 
sparse, inadequate information of the above character. The Na- 
tional Coal Association, representing about 60 per cent of the 
coal operators of the country, called upon the courts to compel 
the Federal Trade Commission to discontinue the investigation. 
Said the Commission: 


“The reason for the incompleteness of the Com- 
mission’s information and for the necessity of relying 
on the National Coal Association’s unrevised costs for 
the three years’ period lies in the fact that an injunction 
was eranted against the Commission by the Supreme 
Court of the District of Columbia on April 19, 1920, 
in the case of Maynard Coal Company against the 
Commission, wherein the Court’s opinion held that the 
Commission was ‘demanding information as to inter- 
state commerce and as to coal production,’ and that, 
‘no such visitorial power as tlrat claimed by the Com- 
mission in the instant case has been vested in Congress 
by the Constitution, nor could Congress delegate such 
power to the Commission’. 

“Shortly thereafter 22 steel companies brought 
similar proceedings against the Commission touching 
its requirements, both as to steel and coal trade. In 
this case a permanent injunction was issued on March 
10, 1922, by the same Court that issued the pene 
in the Maynard case. 


8) Senate Document No. 207-——Part 2, Page 29. Submitted to 67th 
Congress, May 31, 1922, 


84 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“These proceedings and injunctions stopped the 
Commission’s activities in the collection and publica- 
tion of information as to coal and other basic commo- 
dities which the Commission, as a measure to abate 
the high cost of living, undertook to compile and pub- 
lish currently, beginning 1920. . .””°) 


Now, when Congress investigates profits, the commodity in 
question, in this case it happened to be coal, is not an article 
involved in interstate commerce. But when a State attempts to 
investigate profits, the same commodity, at the touch of a 
robed alchemist, instantly becomes an article involved in inter- 
state commerce as described by Congressman Newton of Min- 
nesota: 


“About the same time the Regulatory Commission 
of the State of Indiana issued an order to certain coal 
companies requiring them to file with the State author- 
ities a statement of the cost of mining coal. The Nation- 
al Coal Association, or some of its members, contested 
this order on the ground that the entire output of these 
mines would go largely into interstate commerce and 
was wholly without jurisdiction of the State of Indiana, 
and that only the Federal Government had the juris- 
diction to require such information. . . 

“The National Coal Association and its members 
have, by these two proceedings, placed the public in 
a sort of constitutional ‘no man’s land’, where it is 
being shot at from both sides through the levying of 
increased prices for this necessity of life.’ 


How helpless the Government is when it attempts to pry 
into the secrets of its master, the employing class, is admitted 
by the wealthy ex-Senator Frelinghuysen, who confessed that 
“The coal lobby has tied the Government’s hands and poked out 


9) Ibid—Pages 2-3. 
10) See Congressional Record, Vol. 62, No. 71, page 4033, March 8, 
1922. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 85 


its eyes.” What a poor, weak Government we have when the 
interests of the capitalists are involved in the slightest way. 
Really, mercy yells for help in this case! 

This great power of the Coal Trust stands out in bold relief 
when we look at a cross section of its organization. The an- 
thracite industry, for instance, is a closed corporation. Eight 
companies which not only mine coal but also own the railroads 
hauling the coal within these fields control approximately 75 
per cent of the output. These are: 


1) The Hudson Coal Co. 

2) The Lackawanna & Western Railroad Co. 

3) The Lehigh Coal and Navigation Co. 

4) The Lehigh Valley Coal Co. (including Coxe Bros. & 
Co.) . 

5) The Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Co. 

6) The Pennsylvania Coal Co. (including Hillside Coal 
& Iron Co.) 

7) Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co. 

8) The Scranton Coal Co. 


These eight companies had a combined production of 73.4 per 
cent. of the total anthracite produced in 1919. 

Such a condition prevails in the entire coal industry, though 
not as acutely in the bituminous industry. We find that the 
United States Steel Corporation and the Railroads own almost 
75 per cent of both the anthracite and bituminous coal fields. 
They control the output of coal through thirteen of the leading 
financial institutions.") 

The U.S. Steel Corporation controls the Federal Steel Cor- 
poration of New Jersey, which owns the Illinois Steel Co. which 


11) See Congressional Record, Vol. 62, No. 91, page 5328, March 31, 
1922. 


86 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


in turn owns all the stock ($2,000,000) of a company appearing 
in the open as the United States Coal & Coke Co.” 

It is evident that Mammon, the God of .-today, like his 
predecessor Jehovah, the God of yesterday, also has his Bible— 
especially when we consider the “begetting” process. 

These are the exploiters of the coal miners. These are the 
same capitalists who exploit the steel workers, the railroad 
workers, and millions of other workers. It is for these Steel 
and Coal Barons, and Rail and Money Lords that the American 
workers are grinding out profits. It is because of the burden- 
some tribute paid to these capitalists that the miners are working 
for such small pay and under such degrading conditions. 


The Wages and W orking Conditions 


The capitalist class has been doing a tremendous amount of 
howling over the “high”, the “excessive” wages of the miners. 
Such noise is the grossest outrage perpetrated on truth. 

According to the findings of so conservative a Congressman 
as Representative Bland of Indiana the mine workers’ earnings 
average as follows for 1921: 


Average Days 
District Worked in 1921 Average Earnings 
Ohiotien sac ees 119 $550 
Pittsburgh i252. - 123 762 
West Virginia ... 80 500 


In Tennessee, one third of the workers averaged one third time 
and earned $105 per month per man when at work.) Further- 
more the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ has pointed 
out that: 


12) United States of America, Appellant, Vs. U. S. Steel Co. et al., 
Supreme Court Term, October Term 1916, No. 481. Brief for the Appel- 
lant, pages 755-6. 

13) See Congressional Record, March 17, 1922. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 87 


“At the hearings on the Bland Bill before the 
House Committee on Labor, Mr. John Brophy, Presi- 
dent of District No. 2, Central Pennsylvania, present- 
ed data which he had gathered on the earnings of 
31,979 mine workers in Central Pennsylvania for the 
year 1921. The average for the year for all of the 
miners in the territory covered was $760 or $14.60 per 
week. The average amount of operation for all the 
mines in which these workers were employed was 
122 days.) 


For the period of June 1, 1918, to May 31, 1919—a period 
in which the coal operators made profits running into thousands 
of per cent. the Department of Labor found that 95.6 per cent 
of the mine workers in an anthracite community earned less than 
$1850; 63 per cent. less than $1250 and 16.6 per cent. less than 
$850 per year. Of the latter, 91.8 per cent reported unemploy- 
ment; of those earning between $850 and $1250, 83.9 per cent. 
reported unemployment; and 55.7 per cent of those earning be- 
tween $1250 and $1850 reported unemployment.) 

Also, Mr. Basil Manly has pointed out that: 


“In the mining regions only one-third of the famil- 
ies are entirely supported by the earnings of the hus- 
band, while the other two thirds are dependent for 
subsistence on the supplementary income derived from ~ 
the labor of the wife and the children or by keeping 
boarders and lodgers.”?° 


And here follows an actual case in the Cossack-ridden State 


of Pennsylvania: 


“My husband was a night watchman,’ said Mrs. 
Beal. ‘He worked twelve hours a night and seven nights 


14) Bulletin No. 2, Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in Amer- 
ica, “The Coal Controversy”—Page 25. 

15) Bulletin Number 106, Department of Labor, “Child Labor and the 
Welfare of Children in an Anthracite Coal Mining District,” 1922, p. 29. 

16) Are Wages Too High? By Basil Manly, Page 17. 


88 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


a week and his monthly salary before April 1 was 
$147.50. He was cut $37.50 in April, but never knew 
it until he tried to draw his pay. My husband has 
worked several years for the company. Every two 
weeks, on pay day, he drew $1 in cash, The rest of his 
salary we deducted for groceries and other articles that 
we were forced to buy at the company store.’ ” 


When asked by the questioner, Commissioner Hirschfield, 
what she did with the dollar, the woman replied: 


“T usually gave it to our doctor... I paid him by 
the week for his services in attending me when I had 
my babies. I then got through paying one bill when 
I had my last child. A few weeks later we were evicted 
from the company house.’ ” 


To the question of the Commissioner as to where the family 
had been living since the eviction the woman answered: 


“In a washhouse, ten feet square. Five of us 
sleep in one bed.’ 7) 


It is through such low wages that the Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre 
Coal Co. has been able to increase its surplus from 1912-1920 
nearly 900 per cent—from $3,500,000 to $27,000,000, and paid 
dividends as high as 305 per cent; that the Temple Coal Co. 
increased the net income on its capital stock from 29.3 per cent. 
in 1912 to 121 per cent. in 1920; that the Lehigh Valley Coal Co. 
was able to increase the value of its property from $5,500,000 
to $12,000,000, reduced its bonded debt from $20,000,000 to 
$11,500,000 and pay dividends of 190 per cent; and that the 
Philadelphia & Reading Coal Co. increased its surplus by 1700 - 
per cent., from $1,500,000 in 1912 to $25,000,000 in 1920, and 





17) Associated Press Despatch, New York World, November “a 1922, 
quoting testimony given before the N. Y. Municipal Coal Investigating 
Committee. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 89 


increased the value of its property from $9,500,000 to $33,500,000 
—an increase of 360 per cent.!®) 


Yet the Operators were yelling poverty and insisted on re- 
ducing the already grossly inadequate wages by from 20 to 40 
per cent. 

Because of these starvation wages many children are com- 
pelled to work and thus denied even an elementary schooling 
according to the U. S. Department of Labor. 


“Of the 3136 children between 13-16 years of age 
who were included in this study, 1349 had left school 
for regular employment. At the time of the investiga- 
tion, 1332 were so employed, and 296 were employed 
at vacation or after-school work, or both; so that more 
than half, 51.9 per cent., of the children could be de- 
scribed as working children. Of these 1,107 were boys 
and 521 girls.”}9) 


And the working conditions are no less intolerable for these 
boys and girls than they are for their fathers. As one worker 
said to the investigator: “If you don’t die you wind up in the 
breakers. You begin at the breaker and you end at the breaker, 
broken yourself.” 


Working Conditions 


Irregularity of employment is one of the worst diseases 
afflicting the miner’s life. It means aggravated unemployment 
for him. The miner cannot know today whether there will be 
work for him tomorrow. Many times, at the whistle’s call of 
“work” in the evening and the morning, the miner will rise at 
four in the niorning, set himself ready for work, walk more than 
five miles to the pit, and then be informed that there is nothing 


18) Speech of Representative Newton, Minn., Congressional Record, 
March 8, 1922, page 4040. 
19) Department of Labor Bulletin No. 106, page 1) 


90 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


doing because the Railroad Company had failed to furnish empty 
cars. Picturing these conditions before Congress, Representative 


Ricketts of Ohio, said: 


“Men working in this district (Crooksville) never 
have an opportunity to straighten themselves or straight- 
en their backs during the day until they go out of the 
mine in the evening unless they choose to lie flat on the 
floor or bottom of the mine. They enter the mine in 
the morning and sometimes they have to walk for miles 
in a stooped position to their work. They are frequent- 
ly compelled to go through mud and water in order to 
reach their work.”°) 


Pneumonia, consumption and colds are not uncommon 
amongst the miners. They are continually exposed to gas and 
dust explosions, to the falling of slate and coal, mine damp, 
fire, drowning and electrocution. Denial of sunlight and fresh 
air accompany the starvation wage of the miner in his hard lot. 


In 1921, despite severe unemployment, the toll of. killed 
in the mines was 1,973 according to the report of the Bureau 
of Mines. 7 

Here is a description of working conditions for boys and 
men in an anthracite district from the findings of the U. S. 
Department of Labor: 


“These older men and boys worked in the con- 
stant roar which the coal makes as it rushes down the 
chute, is broken in the crushing machines, or sorted 
in the shakers. Black coal dust is everywhere, cover- 
ing the windows and filling the air and the lungs of 
the workers. The slate is so sharp that the slate pick- 
ers of ten cut or bruise their hands; the coal is carried 
down the chute in water and this means sore and swol- 
len hands for the pickers. The first few weeks after 


20) Congressional Record Vol. 62, page 5698. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 91 


a boy begins work his fingers bleed almost continu- 
ously and are called red tops by the other boys.’2!) 


And despite all this the American miner is the most pro- 
ductive in the world, as shown by the Christian Science Monitor 
investigation. 


“The American miner as the greatest per capita 
output of any miner in the world. The production per 
man increased from 579 tons in 1890 to 942 tons in 
1918. The British worker manages to get only 250 
tons a year, or three and three-quarters times less.”22) 


Yet, what are the rewards of the miner, the worker who 
actually takes his life into his own hands every time he steps into 
the pit, the worker who digs the coal? Answering this question 


the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ says: 


“The indication points to an annual wage lower 
by $430.45 than the minimum budget necessary for a 
workingman’s family as compiled by the National In- 
dustrial Conference Board (an employers’ organiza- 
tion) for Detroit, Michigan, September 1921. This is 
their most recent cost budget and it totals $1697.95.”9) 


The prevailing conditions on the eve of the strike were 
forcefully told by Elmer O. Pettit, for eight years a Common 
Pleas Judge in the Hocking Valley District of Ohio. It was sent 
to Representative Ricketts of that State on March 25, 1922. 


“Distress among the coal miners in Hocking Coun- 
ty is alarming and I am informed that similar condi- 
tions exist in Perry and Athens Counties. In Hocking 
County the coal producing area, as you know, is 


21) U. S. Department of Labor, Bulletin No. 106, page 16. 
22) Report of Investigator, appearing in Christian Science Monitor, 


Nov. 17, 1922. 
23) “The Coal Controversy,” page 25 (Federal Council of the Churches 


of Christ in America). 


92 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


somewhat limited; yet a careful survey made by the 
committee on relief for this county, of which I am 
chairman, shows that there are in our County alone 127 
families, comprising in all 725 persons, who are in 
absolute need of food... 

“It seems now certain that there will be a strike 
commencing on April 1, and there will be no work 
at all at the mines. For the last sixteen months or more 
there has been but little work for these people, and 
until recently they lived upon their savings, what little 
they were able to earn, and the union allowances. 
The picture is dark enough without going further... . 

“T have no doubt that many of them have suffered 


because they were too proud to make known their con- 
dition. . .”4) 


The Strike in Full Swing 


Imbued with an intense hatred of these abominable 
working and living conditions, the miners, long in the front 
ranks of the American trade unionists, presented an impregnable 
line against their enemy—the united army of the Operators and 
their Government agents. They displayed unheard of solidarity 
in the face of the indescribable brutality of the forces arrayed 
against them. Despite extensive troop movements and the un- 
divided support given to the Operators by the Government, after 
its expectations as to an early defeat of the miners proved en- 
tirely unfounded, the heroic strikers fought on. The reserve 
supply of coal was exhausted. The non-union production did 
not come anywhere near the hopes of the Operators and their 
Government henchmen. The Government soon became con- 
vinced that bayonets could be used only for murdering working- 
men—but never for digging coal. 

The miners knew their opponents. They knew the determin- 
ation of their bosses to make them pay the cost of depression 


24) Congressional Record, Vol. 62, No. 96, page 5696. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 93 


in order to continue the steady flow of dividends for those who 
do nothing for a living except own. Whatever attempt at hiring 
strikebreakers that was made by the Operators with the assist- 
ance of the Government turned out to be a fizzle. At Herrin, 
the miners showed that they could not be overwhelmed by 
armies of gunmen and they rose in heroic defense of their lives 
and jobs. After the struggle at Herrin the production of non- 
union coal fell off by almost 50 per cent. 


This incident aroused a desire for savage revenge among 
the capitalists. From the Stock Exchange in Wall Street to the 
White House in the Capital the cry for capitalist justice—merci- 
less retribution for the punishment administered to the gunmen 
at Herrin—was most frantically echoed. But the answer of 
the miners was greater solidarity. 


A miners’ strike is a war. It covers a front of hundreds of 
miles and involves hundreds of thousands of men. In this 
miners’ war, as in any other modern war, the problem of. food 
is most important. An army of miners on strike like an army 
of attack must have food. The commissary division of the 
United Mine Workers has long ago won its spurs in action. In 
this problem of food, however, it is the women who bear the 
brunt of the burden. It is they who must answer the call of the 
famished infant and the starving child for bread. The wives 
of the miners play a role of great significance in determining 
the morale of the miners. And in this bitter struggle the wives 
of the miners did not falter or fail for even a moment, as the 
Labor Age well said: 


“Back of the great fight put up by the miners is 
the heroic loyalty of the miners’ wives. . . 

“In the late Great Mine War they went cheerfully 
into the tent colonies. They gave birth to children in 
the open fields. They cooked without sufficient water, 
because the companies in several places cvt off their 


94 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


supply. They were driven out of their homes at night 
with no place to go. They were subject to the insults 
of the State Constabulary and mine guards—and in 
some instances were assaulted and raped by these thugs. 


“Their sufferings made possible the united 
front.” 


Strike Deadly Effective 


As the strike went on its effect on industry became more 
and more paralyzing. This situation, aggravated by the strike 
of the railway shopmen, was rapidly driving the country head- 
long to a standstill in industry. 


The reserve supplies held in store by the thousands of cor- 
porations throughout the country were steadily being exhausted. 
The steel industry was confronted with a condition whereby it 
could not weather a few days of severe weather. Henry Ford 
issued an order to close his plants and wired the thousands of 
companies selling him accessories in the following words: 


“On account of coal we will be unable to operate 
our plants after Saturday, September 16. No material 
will be accepted if shipped other than mentioned in 
letter following.” 


In New York, the United Real Estate Owners’ Association, 
announced on August 27th, that its survey indicated that of 
its eleven thousand members only a “few coal users have coal 
for more than a month’s use.” Despite the fact .that through 
the arrangements of the Shipping Board the importation of 
British coal was intensified, the pinch was beginning to be felt 
very severely. Plans were considered to convert the skyscrapers 
and the giant office buildings of New York from coal into oil 
burners. ; 


25) Labor Age, Oct. 1922, page 23. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 95 


The Government Runs to the Rescue of the Operators 


After two months of struggle the Government made a com- 
plete right about face in its strike policy. It became convinced 
that the showdown which, back in January, it was so anxious to 
force on the workers did not develop at it hoped. From the very 
moment that the occurrence of the strike became a matter of 
fact the Government showed where it stood. When the strike be- 
came so effective as to gnaw into the dividends of the huge cor- 
porations, the Government openly dropped its hands-off policy. 
The Government clenched its fists, it showed its teeth, and the 
workers felt its heavy military and judiciary hands grip their 
throat. The Government was bent on breaking the strike or at 
least saving its poor Operators from an ignominious defeat at 
the hands of the fighting miners whose only crime was that they 
had dared challenge the right of their bosses to drive them 
further down the road of misery and starvation. 


Injunctions as usual were the first aid rendered to the 
capitalists by their Government. These injunctions were of the 
most sweeping character, as pointed out by Mr. Searles, editor 
of the United Mines Workers’ Journal: 


“Dozens of such injunctions were issued by West 
Virginia Courts. They were of the most drastic char- 
acter, making it impossible for union miners to meet 
together, discuss the strike or aid or assist those on 
strike. The collection of the check-off was prohibited 
by injunction. Every possible activity was made im- 
possible. The result was that these injunctions broke 
the strike in some places, as it was intended they should, 
and the strike, to some degree, failed there. It was a 
clear case of driving unwilling men back to work with 
injunction writs, . .”6 


26) N. Y. Times Current History, Ellis Searles, Nov. 1922, page 220. 


96 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


In Pennsylvania the local Government was especially ener- 
getic in smashing the union and oppressing the workers, accord- 
ing to Mr. Hays of the Civil Liberties Union: 


“The coal and iron police, mounted and heavily 
armed, acting under the directions of the coal company, 
permit no one to stand for a moment on the streets, and 
greet arrivals with threats of arrest, obscene language 
and physical violence. . . 

“We identified the police who had assaulted us and 
the company officials who had given them orders, and 
I was on my way to the Justice of Peace, (at Vinton- 
dale) who was holding court in the Coal company’s 
office, when I was arrested on the charge of trespass- 
ing. I was seized by two troopers who threw me into 
a filthy cell. . . 

“When I appeared before the Justice of the Peace 
he informed me that he would hear my case. He asked 
me if I was ready for trial, and when I replied in the 
affirmative, his answer was: ‘Guilty; I fine you Five 
Dollars.’ I protested at this and he then announced that 
he would suspend the fine on condition that I would 
leave the town. When I refused to leave Vintondale 
and demanded a hearing, he then stated that the case 
was concluded; that I was not guilty and would not be 
fined, and he and the company left me alone in the 
court room. 

“This terrorizing of citizens on the part of the coal 
and iron police is no mere incident of the strike. The 
coal companies have exercised complete control over 
the civil authorities of Vintondale and other mining 
towns for many years. They employ their own police- 
men; they close post offices, eject visitors from the 
towns, and hold court in their own offices. . .”? (Our 
Italics). 


This is a capitalist dictatorship—a rule of the employing 
class, by the employing class and for the employing class in the 


27) Report of Arthur Garfield Hays, investigating mining conditions 
for the Civil Liberties Union. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 97 


“democratic” commonwealth of the great Keystone State. And 
discussing the coal situation Representative Thomas of Ken- 
tucky made it plain that: 


“West Virginia is without a Republican form of 
Government, and about the only law executed in that 
State is the will of the Guggenheim and similar inter- 
ests which have adjusted wages downwards until the 
wages of most miners in the State are less than $300 
a year. . 78) 


The employers were not content with the free use of State 
troops. They maintained their own armies and had an elaborate 
private spy system. These gangmen of the capitalists will resort 
to any tactics against the workers. Describing the results of these 


methods the N. Y. World said: 


“An elaborate system of espionage was developed 
and pretexts were found for jailing organizers. Auto- 
mobiles full of armed guards were in ambush near the 
Lincoln Highway, and when cars containing organ- 
izers passed they were followed so closely that they 
could not stop without danger of a crash. Court 
records filled up with homicide cases, in which a major- 
ity of decisions favored the company representatives. 
There were grave charges of perjury and injustice in 
the courts. . .”? 


And the Journal of the Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen 
cites this case: ¢ 


“A large body of women gathered and urged the 
men not to return to work. The uniformed guards at 
the plant rounded up the women and running out a line 
of fire hose prepared to drench them. The sight of 


28) Congressional Record, Vol. 62, No. 92, page 5414. 
29) N. Y¥. World, October 15, 1922, Elizabeth Houghton, Staff Cor- 
respondent. 


98 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


the hose, reports to the county authorities said, threw 


the women into a panic, some of them becoming hyster- 
ICAL ah eee 


In the President’s own State of Ohio the situation for the 
workers was just as bad. The iron rule of the mine bosses was 
supreme, as the following report of a local miners’ defense 
committee shows: 


“Bellaire, Ohio.—Dan Agosti, one of the thirteen 
miners who were indicted in the New Laferty, Ohio, 
trouble between miners and strikebreakers was found 
guilty of murder in the second degree last week. 


“‘Agosti is the second one to be tried in this case. 
Another, Dominick Venturato, President of a miners’ 
local in District 6, United Mine Workers, was tried in 
August and found guilty of murder in the first degree. 


“Agosti, Venturato, and eleven others were held 
for the death of John L. Major, a non-union operator. 
Major and a party of strikebreakers came upon a mass 
meeting of striking miners at New Laferty, Ohio, on the 
morning of June 27th last. Someone from among 


the miners that gathered around their machine opened 
fire and Major was killed. 


“Subsequent to many arrests, thirteen miners were 
indicted on charges of conspiracy, including Robert 
Farmer, a Vice-President of Sub-District Number 5 of 
District Number 6. The trial of Agosti was character- 
ized by the adverse rulings of the Judge, particularly in 
the selection of jurors, and withethe result that those 
who might have been counted on as fair, were disquali- 
fied. One woman juror was dismissed because her hus- 
band worked in a mine, although she qualified in every 
other way. It is also the source of much complaint that 
this Judge, whose name is Cowen, selected the jury 
venire from a class who were strongly prejudiced 


30) Report from the Collier Mine, H. C. Frick Co.—Locomotive Fire- 
men and Enginemen’s Journal, Sept. 15, 1922. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 


against the defendants, over the repeated protests of the 
attorneys for the defense. 

“Strange to say, this same judge and the special 
prosecutor in the case were, at one time, while law 
‘partners, the attorneys for the miners’ union in this 
vicinity, but were removed by a convention of the Sub- 
District. . .2!) (Qur Italics). 


99 


Yes. Many strange things do happen when the capitalists 


demand the blood of their innocent workers—and when their 
demand is made good by the employers’ government. 


Evictions and intimidation of the most unbridled character 


according to the following findings of Powers Hapgood. 


“The coal companies in all these counties have 
served five-day eviction notices on a great many of 
their employees, hoping by that means to intimidate the 
men to come back to work under non-union conditions. 
In many instances deputy sheriffs employed by the coal 
companies have even thrown families and their furni- 
ture right out on the road before the union was able 
to supply them with tents. , 

“In Somerset County in the month of April there 
were 347 new deputy sheriffs commissioned by the 
sheriff of Somerset County. The wages of these deputy 
sheriffs were paid by the coal companies who asked 
the sheriff to deputize them. The sheriff received $1 per 
day for each deputy that he commissioned for the com- 
pany.... 

“When a miner who is unable to speak English 
or defend himself in Court is arrested he is usually 
found guilty of the trumped-up charges which the mine 
guards bring against them, even though they be entire- 
ly innocent. 

“Not only were the union men often put in jail 
for doing nothing at all, but in numerous instances they 


have proved a powerful weapon in the hands of the Operators, 


31) Bulletin of the Miners’ Defense Committee, Sub. Dist. 5. Diet. 6, 
U. M. W. of A. 


100 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


were brutally handled. The most notable case of this 
treatment is the Jerome Mine of the Hillman Coal and 
Coke Co. Here several men who merely asked some im- 
ported strikebreakers if they did not know there was a 
strike on were beaten over the head and shoulders with 
blackjacks by the mine guards and then put in jail 
and charged with inciting to riot. ene 


And if by chance the coal companies did-not own some 
land used by evicted strikers, they always found the means fur- 
ther to browbeat their workers. An investigator of the New 


York World has shown that: 


“Land has been bought up from the neighboring 
farmers to prevent the establishment of tent colonies. 
Tony Neri, an Italian farmer, was offered $5000 for a 
farm worth $1000 (his own evaluation), when he re- 
fused to forbid a strike meeting being held there.”33) 


Harding Dons the Strikebreaker’s Uniform 


We have seen how the Government pursued a “hands-off” 
policy before the strike because it believed a the workers 
would be decisively beaten. : 

When the strike was in full swing, Harding, as chief spokes- 
man of the Government developed a strong policy—that is a 
crushing policy against the workers. After admitting that he 
was unable to compel the strikers to accept “arbitration”, he 
issued a public declaration condemning the valiant miners who 
had been fighting for nineteen weeks for refusing to surrender. 
He again urged all Operators to resume mining under the pro- 
tection of the bayonets of the Government troops. He said in 
his strikebreaking message of August 18th: 


32) Report of Conditions in Coal Fields by Powers Hapgood. 
33) New York World, October 15, 1922. Elizabeth Houghton, Staff 
Correspondent. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 101 


“The simple but significant truth was revealed 
that except for such coal as comes from the districts 
worked by unorganized miners, the country is at the 
mercy of the United Mine Workers.” 


To the President as to every other strikebreaker, as to every 
other capitalist agent, a union becomes a criminal organization 
when it becomes strong enough to challenge the power of the 
employers ruthlessly to exploit and oppress the workers. No 
such words were used by Harding when the Operators and the 
Government itself broke a contract with the miners because 
they thought the time for exterminating the union was ripe. 
Then, as a servant of the employers, Harding was not even aware 
that there was a strike problem in the coal fields. But once the 
strike was on, Harding turned his rostrum into a cesspool of 
lying propaganda for the Operators. In the same strikebreak- 
ing message he delivered this sample of imagination run amuck: 


“Governors in various States report that their 
Operators and miners had no dispute and were eager to 
resume production. District leaders informed me that 
their workmen were anxious to return to their jobs, 
but that they were not permitted to do so. Hundreds 
of wives of workmen have addressed the White House 
beseeching a settlement, alleging that they knew no 
erievance.” 


“Our” President is really running to the defense of out- 
raged innocence. The women, the wives of the workers, who 
were clubbed, drenched, insulted, and evicted had no grievance. 
Truth yells for help. 

Nearly every mining State had troops, in addition to the 
Deputy Sheriffs and private gunmen, defend the “right to work” 
—of the strikebreakers. As per Harding’s orders the flag was 
unfurled at the mines by the Governors of many States. But 
not even Warren Gamaliel Harding could use the flag as a means 


102 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


of blindfolding the workers when it was used openly to serve as a 
screen behind which the strikebreakers were ordered to hide. 
How this policy has failed was well told by Mr. Searles: 


“Governor Sproul of Pennsylvania sent eleven 
hundred soldiers into the bituminous fields of Western 
Pennsylvania to guard the army of men that was to 
flock back to the mines, but the army did not flock. 
A few strikebreakers were imported into the mines, 
but the production of coal did not increase. Operators 
were unable to deliver on their promise of production 
under military protection. Governor McCray of In- 
diana sent a thousand soldiers into the mining field of 
that State, where they remained for several weeks, and 
in all that time there was produced about 1600 tons 
of coal at a cost to the State of approximately $100 to 
$150 a ton, including the cost of the ano display. 
Other States had a similar experience. . .”4) 


Profiteering Rampant 


While Harding was fretting about the country being at the 
mercy of the United Mine Workers, the Government through its 
Department of Justice was giving a free rein to the Operators 
who could supply coal to charge to their pockets’ delight. In 
his strikebreaking message already mentioned the Chief Execu- 
tive spoke very tenderly and appreciatively, to say the least, of 
the noble “conscience” of these public-minded Operators. 


“The Administration earnestly has sought to re- 
strain profiteering and to secure the rightful distribu- 
tion of such coal as has been available in this emer- 
gency. There were no legal powers for price control. 
There has been cordial co-operation in many fields, a 
fine revelation of business conscience, stronger than the 
temptation to profit by a people’s misfortune.” 


34) N. Y. Times Current History, November 1922, page 220. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 103 


It is interesting to note that when it comes to controlling 
the Operators from unbridled reckless plunder our worthy Presi- 
dent relies on the conscience of these conscienceless ghouls, 
but when a struggle of starving oppressed workers is considered 
the President rushes troops, implores courts, and threatens new 
legislation to break the strike. 


Henry Ford charged that the Railroads and the coal cor- 
porations were in an agreement to raise the coal prices. “There 
is no use trying to balk them, and I, for one, am tired of trying,” 
he said. And Governor Edwards of New Jersey was forced to 
appeal to Governor Sproul of Pennsylvania to do something 
as the anthracite Operators were turning fixed maximum prices 
into ever-rising minimum prices. In his telegram of October 
6th to Governor Sproul, the Governor of New Jersey said: 


“Complaints are coming daily to our New Jersey 

* Fuel Commission from retail dealers of the insistence 

by independent Operators in charging as high as 

$14.50, or $6 in excess of the maximum price per ton 

fixed by yourself and your State Commission as the 
price of anthracite coal at the mines. 

“Cannot something be done to remedy this situa- 
tion in time for us to assure the public of the propor- 
tion of the supply allocated to New Jersey by your State 
Commission in accordance with the fair price to which 
they were led to believe coal would be secured through 
our co-operation with the authorities of Pennsylvania 
and the Federal Government ?**? 


This helplessness of the Government to control the prices 
of coal except through an appeal to “conscience”, while it was 
expending all its energies to break the ranks of the strikers, was 
country-wide. Apropos of this condition the Farmer-Labor 
Record of North Dakota reported: 


35) New York Globe, October 6, 1922. 


} 


104 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“According to J. H. Calderhead, Secretary of the 
State Board of Railroad Commissioners, who has just 
returned from a trip to Chicago, Cleveland, and Buf- 
falo, the coal Operators of the Eastern and Middle- 
Western States are paying absolutely no attention to the 
Government’s attempt to prevent profiteering on the 
price of coal. 

“The Government fixed a price of from’ $3.65 to 
$4.80 per ton on the coal, depending on the location 
and quality, but the coal Operators are charging all 
the traffic will bear and the price of coal in Cleveland 
today is around $11.25 per ton, three dollars higher 
than it was ever known to be in the city’s history.’*® 


After Harding promised Federal protection to strikebreakers 


in the mines, Hoover was appointed to “control” prices for the 
“public”. How well Hoover acted in behalf of the employers 
is seen from the following in a letter sent by Senator Borah to 


the 


Coal Controller: 


“T find, according to my investigation the following 
quotations on coal: 


1922 
District Market Quoted April3 August 7 

Smokeless mine run __ Boston $4.65 $9.50 
Pool 11 (low volatile) Philadelphia 1.90 8.25 
Somerset mine run Boston 2.00 7.50 
Pool 54-64 

(gas and steam) Philadelphia 1.00: O25 
West Virginia Screenings Cincinnati 1.35 7.00 
Pittsburgh No. 8 run Cleveland 1.85 8.00 
West Kentucky mine run Louisville 1.90 8.00 
Kansas Screenings Kansas City © 2.50 5.50 


“Coat Acre” InpEx Spot Prices 
April 3—$1.71; June 8—$2.55; August 7—$5.11 
Average Spot Price, April 3—$2.06 
Average Spot Price, August 7—$6.18 


36) Farmer-Labor State Record, Bismarck, North Dakota, October 19, 
1922. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 105 


“In adition to that, I have a great number of letters 
from people in different parts of the country advising 
me that they had contracts for coal at from $1.75 to 
$2.15 and that the contracts were disregarded and their 
prices fixed at $3.50 and up. . .” 


We see then that the Government was not satisfied with 
breaking the miners’ strike. It did not stop here. The Govern- 
ment went out of its way to oppress the other workingmen by 
giving the capitalists a free hand in raising the price of coal. 
And then—the Government yelled about the country being at 
the mercy of the United Mine Workers of America! 


Negotiating an Armed Truce 


Having succeeded in creating a coal shortage, in withdraw- 
ing an overwhelming number of hitherto unorganized miners 
from work, and in repelling the onslaught of the Government 
forces, the United Mine Workers forced the Operators into con- 
ference. As early as July 1 the Government saw that its cal- 
culations as to the outcome of the mine strike were a bit astray. 
Harding then called a conference attended by representatives of 
the miners and Operators. This Washington Conference broke 
up because the coal magnates insisted on District agreements. 
Then, Hoover, who was gaining a reputation in “fixing” the 
public as far as prices were concerned, came across with a plan 
for arbitration. A majority of the miners and Operators rejected 
this scheme. The miners were on to the arbitration game of their 
employers. The rank deal handed them by the Bituminous Com- 
mission in 1920 and the outrageous treatment accorded the shop- 
hands by the Railway Labor Board were still fresh in the memo- 
ries of the striking miners. So strong was the resentment of the 
rank and file against such a traitorous surrender that not even 
their leaders dared perpetrate the crime. All of Harding’s 
thunderbolts and denunciations and threats and violence did not 


106 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


avail. The workers were adamant. The official stand of the union 
was thus summed up by the United Mine Workers’ Journal: 


“Arbitration as a means of settlement of a labor 
controversy robs the workers of the right to bargain for 
the sale of their own services. It takes from them all 
of the means which they now possess for their own 
protection against oppressive conditions on the part of 
their employers. . . It has been the bitter experience 
of the workers of this country .that they get the worst 
of it when they agree to the arbitration of their wages 
or working conditions by outside agencies.” 


But in early August came the first break in the ranks of 
the Operators for peace. On August 15th, at Cleveland, Operat- 
ors representing about 10 per cent of the tonnage signed up 
with the union. By Labor Day all the union bituminous miners 
were at work except several thousand men in the Kanawha 
Valley of West Virginia and those deserted by the leaders in 
Pennsylvania. Substantially the terms were as follows: 


1. The old wage scale and working conditions shall 
prevail until March 31, 1923. 

2. A representative, national conference of the entire 
bituminous industry shall meet in Cleveland, 
October 2, to set up a machinery for drawing up 
an agreement to take effect April 1, 1922. 

3. This Conference shall elect a fact finding commis- 
sion to investigate the industry. 

4. This Committee is to report its findings to a nation- 
al Conference to be held on January 3, 1923. 


Though the settlement was not achieved thru the medium 
of one national conference, the various arrangements came 
with such rapidity that in effect it was national. The wage re-, 
duction campaign of the Operators and their attack on the 
check-off failed. The miners succeeded in repelling an on- 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 107 


slaught on their wages and working conditions by offering 
heroic resistance thru five months of the most bitier struggle 
against overwhelming odds. 7 

In the anthracite fields the siruggle was prolonged for a 
few weeks. On September 3 an agreement was reached. ‘This 
was ratified by the miners in conference at Wilkes-Barre, Penn- 
sylvania, on September 9th. The miners retained the old wage 
scale, defeated the attempts to set up a machinery for spurious 
arbitration, set up an investigation Committee, and secured an 
agreement to continue the pre-strike wages and working condi- 
tions until August 31, 1923. The Operators failed in their at- 
tempt to cut wages by 21%. 

That the miners saved themselves from a humiliating de- 
feat when they threw back into Harding’s face his plan for 
“arbitration” was later completely proven. In accordance with 
the provisions of the Borah-Winslow Coal Bill, Harding ap- 
pointed a “Fact-Finding.Commission”. “Our” President rejected 
all ideas of partisanship in his appointments. He did not ap- 
point a single representative of the miners on the Committee. In 
view of his mistreatment of the pubtsc when it came to fixing 
the price of coal, Harding decided to atone for his sins. He 
decided to let the “public” only be represented on this “fact- 
finding” committee. Let us acquaint ourselves a bit with some 
of these defenders of the public. 
| First comes John Hays Hammond, the chairman, a million- 
aire mining engineer. He is a close associate of the Guggenheim 
interests, the dictators of West Virginia. George Otis Smith, 
Chief‘ of the United States Geological Survey, is a professional 
politician and a regular contributor to the “Coal Age”, official 
organ of the National Coal Association, Chas. P. Neill, once 
U. S. Commissioner of Labor, is in the same class. Ex-Vice- 
President Marshall is a Democrat in good standing as a labor 
hater, Judge Samuel Alschuler of Chicago is the representative 


108 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


of the public who complacently stood by while the Packers 
defied his Arbitration Board and slaughtered their workers. And 
last, to add a touch of “humanity” to the farce, Harding has 
included in his committee, Edward 7. Devine, a professional 
charity worker who turns out “social service” for the Rockefeller 
interests. 

The personnel of this committee should convince Harding 
at least, if nobody else, that it is folly “to recognize classes in 
America”. We wonder. But we also know. And so does Wall 
Street. The plan followed by Harding in the choice of this 
Committee is exactly the one desired by the capitalists for arbi- 
trating starvation wages into effect in the railway industry. 


Significance of the Strike 


The miners have scored a partial victory. Their strike was 
the most gigantic industrial strike in the history of America. 
The miners succeeded in repelling the capitalist offensive against 
their union. This has had an invigorating effect on the whole 
labor movement. The strike of the railway shopmen preventing 
the shipments of coal from the non-union areas, coupled with 
the magnificent solidarity and heroism of a large number of 
these former non-union miners themselves made the victory pos- 
sible. Today, after months of severe struggle, the mine workers’ 
union is much stronger not only in numbers but also in mili- 
tancy. The miners have been baptized in the fires of the battle 
and they have emerged from the struggle an army that has been 
through it thick and thin and has poured hell into the enemy— 
into the very white of his eyes. 

But the victory of the miners is not decisive. It is at best 
a truce. The victory is only an armed truce. The preparations 
for the coming struggle are already in the making—by both 
sides; that is the workers on the one side, and the Operators and 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 109 


the Government on the other. The point of view of Mr. Watkins 
of the Pennsylvania Coal and Coke Corporation is typical. 


“Tt can be clearly seen that the Cleveland Confer- 
ence resulted in only a provisional agreement or ar- 
mistice. . . It leaves all the principles involved as to 
check-off, working conditions and future methods of 
making wage agreements in abeyance during the period 
in which the commission is making its inquiry and re- 
commendations.’*”) 


The Conference between the miners and the bituminous 

Operators has ended in a deadlock. The Operators have flatly 
rejected the Central Competitive Field system and the January 
Conference will go into session without any basis of negotiation 
being arrived at. The employers are bent upon dividing the 
workers. They are bent on district agreements. To this demand 
the miners have turned a face of flint. They are presenting an 
adamant front. 


The Bureaucratic Leaders Betray the Workers. 


In paying our homage to the valiant fighters of the miners’ 
union we should not omit to condemn roundly the treason of 
their bureaucratic leaders. The Cleveland agreement did not 
take into consideration the heroic strikers of the Fayette region 
of Pennsylvania. This agreement disregarded the interests of 
the brave miners of Connellsville, Westmoreland, and Somerset 
—all former non-union districts of Pennsylvania. It must be 
remembered that it was the unflinching spirit of revolt, the 100 
per cent. strike of these unorganized miners who rallied to the 
call of the Union, that made it possible for the United Mine 
Workers to beat back the savage attack of the coal Barons. 


37) Thomas H. Watkins, President Pennsylvania Coal & Coke Cor- 
poration in N. Y. Times Current History, November 1922, page 217. 


110 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


This treachery is portrayed in a statement of the rank and 
file miners of Pennsylvania. 


“Immediately after the Cleveland agreement, con- 
ferences were held in Pittsburgh for District No. 5, 
but not only did the District Executive Board ignore 
the coke field miners, but in at least one case signed a 
contract with the Hillman Coal and Coke Co. for only 
those mines near Pittsburgh and did not require to 
sign for their mines in Fayette County. While treach- 
ery of this kind is more or less familiar to all acquainted 
with the history of the United Mine Workers’ settle- 
ment, yet in view of the tremendous services rendered 
the union by the Fayette County strikers, this was a par- 
ticularly nasty betrayal. 

“Not only was the Fayette region left out of the 
settlement, but they were even abandoned so far as the 
relief was concerned. After a six months’ strike whole- 
sale evictions with starvation, and death from exposure 
facing tens of thousands of helpless men, women and 
children, no definite action for relief has been taken nor 
has even a definite promise of action been given. 

“Over 5000 evictions have occurred since June Ist 
in this district. Thousands are facing cold, foggy nights 
in flimsy tents with very little food and no winter cloth- 
ing. Typhoid fever is raging in several of the camps, 
prospective mothers have not adequate shelter, and 
many miners’ children are only escaping death thru 
being cared for in the homes of Pittsburgh workers. 
The situation is desperate. .  .*8 


This is the reward of loyalty to the working class, to the 
bravest of the brave in the miners’ war, when the reactionary 
leaders do the rewarding. 

How differently these bureaucrats reward treason to the 
workers, treason to the striking miners. Let us return to the 


38) Bulletin of the Publicity Committee of the Miners’ Group, District 
5, U. M. W. in Labor Herald, November 1922, page 8. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 11] 


recent struggle for our testimony. When Farrington, President 
of District 12, spoke of separate agreements he was severely 
condemned by all the miners. Even Lewis condemned Farring- 
ton. But the latter at that time was a political opponent of 
Lewis. If this were not so, Lewis would very likely have done 
very much less talking. In Alabama there was a separate agree- 
ment and an appointee of Lewis did the trick as narrated in the 


Labor Herald by John Dorsey. 


“It happened this way: A man who was once Inter- 
national President of the Union, John P. White, was put 
on the pay-roll at an outrageous salary, and sent to 
Alabama, one of the weakly organized districts. White 
was head of the Union at the outbreak of the war; he 
continued to draw his salary from the miners, while he 
went to Washington to serve the Government at $1 a _ 
year. Then he got a good government job, and he was 
succeeded by Lewis as President of the U. M. W. of A. 
But in some way White lost out, so Lewis, for unknown 
reasons, put him on the job again for the union. White 
went to Alabama, signed up separate agreements which 
tied up the miners under an arbitration board whose 
decisions they were bound to accept, and then resigned 
the position of—head of the arbitration board.” 


The whole settlement was a compromise in so far as settling 
the fundamental issues of the struggle. And from the point of 
view of the next struggle, the miners got the short end of the 


deal. Said Mr. Dorsey: 


“Those of us who have battled for years in the 
United Mine Workers of America knew that an attempt 
was due for a compromise. Both the Operators and 
the officials of the Union had good reasons to come to- 
gether. The Operators were licked. If the union had 
held out another month we could have dictated our own 
terms. And the officials wanted a compromise, be- 


39) John Dorsey in the Labor Herald. October 1922. pages 19-20. 


112 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


cause nominations for election of officers to the union 
were due—and they needed a platform to run for of- 
fice on, the platform of ‘we saved your old wage scale 
for you’. When the miners heard of the Cleveland 
meeting called by Lewis, a group of old timers met in 
one of the Illinois towns and talked it over. We all 
agreed on an outline of what we thought would be done 
there. Our agreement fitted the actual outcome like 
a tailor-made suit. So there wasn’t much surprise, al- 
though much bitter feeling arises at the thought that 
this splendid battle has brought only a quarter-vic- 
LOFYR ie wee 


Unless unforeseen circumstances intervene the miners will 
pay the price for their Pyrrhic victory and the treachery of their 
leaders when their next test of strength comes. 

We can rely on the President’s “public” investigation com- 
mittee to recommend deflation under some name or other, but 
actually it will be the deflating of the workers’ wages. The excuse 
will be that the public must be protected against high prices of 
coal and that the industry—bituminous coal mining is over- 
capitalized to pay sufficient dividends. Therefore wages must be 
cut. This propaganda will be spread far and wide by the Opera- 
tors and their Government and many workers will turn against 
the miners if they will resist a wage cut. 


The Union is confronted with serious court suits of a most 
costly nature. The Coronado decision is yet to be paid for by 
the trade unions of America in general and the miners’ union in 
particular. The Herrin defense will also drain the miners’ 
treasury. The miners will thus financially be even weaker than 
they were on the eve of the last strike. But the capitalists, as 
has been shown, are now charging more for coal than ever be- 
fore. They will be well prepared for the coming conflict. 


40) Ibid., Page 19. 


THE MINERS ON STRIKE 113 


Our Shipping Board took a hand in facilitating the impor- 
tation of coal last summer. Experience is the best teacher— 
even for a Government strikebreaking agency. We can safely 
leave it to our Shipping Board, subsidy or no subsidy, to improve 
in this strikebreaking activity. 

Finally, the anthracite miners are tied down by contract to 
work five months after a strike declaration by the bituminous 
workers. This will further make impossible a coal shortage. It 
will further paralyze the power of the strikers. The miners will 
be hard pressed in the next strike and it will be up to the rank 
and file to goad their leaders into a strong campaign of unioni- 
zation to avoid disaster. 


Anent this situation the Labor Herald well says: 


“The one factor which can enable the bosses to cut 
wages next Spring is the unorganized districts. West 
Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Colorado, and other out- 
lying fields, have been neglected by the union for po- 
litical and other reasons. If Lewis would only send 
the ‘organizers’ who-are idling around the hotels in 
districts already organized 100%, down into these un- 
organized fields with the word that they would be fired 
instantly unless they began to show results, the mines 
of the country would be organized completely before 
Spring. ; 

“The trouble is that the administration deliberate- 
ly keeps these districts partly unorganized so that 
they will be dependent upon the assistance of the na- 
tional office. . .”4)) 


_ Thus are the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers and 
their wives and children only pawns in the hands of unscrupulous 
bureaucrats—at the mercy of leaders who are pettier even than 
their petty purposes. | 


41) Ibid.. pages 20 and 32. 


114 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Conclusion. 


The stone-wall defense of the miners, like the brilliant re- 
sistance of the textile workers checked the capitalist drive against 
the workers’ unions. These two battles put new courage into 
the hearts of the workingmen. The employers have been com- 
pelled to withdraw to reform their lines. But the workers must 
be better prepared than ever for the new conflicts. They must 
take account of their past struggles. They must not forget the 
lessons of these two gigantic battles. 

In the miners’ strike, as in the textile strike, the workers 
fought against almost insurmo-ntable obstacles. They not only 
had to face the highly organized offensive of their employers, 
but they also had to reckon with a leadership which refused to 
fight and which refused to pursue a victory to the complete end. 
Above all, the workingmen were confronted by a strike- 
breaking agency that had at its command soldiers armed with the 
most modern devices of fiendish destruction and a great number 
of robed tyrants sitting in courts and condemning the workers 
to jails and penal servitude—the Government. 


CHAPTER V. 


HERRIN—A LESSON IN AMERICAN CLASS WAR 


“We, the jury, find that the deaths were due to 
the acts, direct and indirect, of the officials of the South- 
ern Illinois Coal Company. We recommend that in- 
vestigation be conducted for the purpose of fixing the 
blame upon the individuals responsible.”—From the 
Report of the Coroner’s Jury. 


* ae history of the struggles of the American working class is 

_a history replete with incidents of heroic resistance to 
the brutal tyranny of the ruling class—the employing class. 
Many a page in the annals of the American labor movement has 
been written in blood— in the blood of the workingmen—written 
by the Government’s soldiers preserving the law and order of 
profits. 

But American capitalists are notorious for their greed. They 
are not satisfied with merely having the military forces of their 
Government at their beck and call. Many corporations maintain 
their own private armies of depraved gunmen. West Virginia, 
Colorado, the Steel towns of Pennsylvania, and the coal fields 
of the same State afford a superabundance of ruthlessness with 
which these private armies rule the domains of Steel and Coal. 
In the very heyday of their power and in the very limit of their 
brutality the mercenaries of the feudal tyrants did not exceed their 
American successors of the Twentieth Century. Cabin Creek, 
Pine Creek, Nashua, and Ludlow are gory monuments to the lust 
of American capitalism. 

115 


116 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


The story of Herrin is a story of the revolt of striking miners 
against the privately armed gunmen, thugs, detectives. The 
echoes of Herrin resounding from the press and pulpit, from 
the legislature and the schoolroom, are frantic shrieks merging 
into an hysterical chorus for barbaric revenge—for merciless 
retribution. Strikebreakers have given their lives on the altar 
of profits. The workers must pay. They must pay in blood. 


The Facts of the Case 


In Williamson County, in the State of Illinois, between the 
towns of Marion and Herrin, there is a strip mine operated by 
the Southern Illinois Coal Company. In the midst of the coal 
strike this company entered into an agreement with the union 
permitting it to “strip” the earth from veins of coal which were 
close enough to the surface to be mined without difficulty. This 
permission was granted by the Union in order to facilitate the 
resumption of operations when the strike would be settled. Mr. 
Lester, President of the Southern Illinois Coal Co., promised 
that he would make no attempt to mine coal until the end of the 
strike. But early in June the agreement was violated by the 
Company, as told by Congressman Denison representing the 
Congressional district in which Herrin is located. 


“‘As soon as the company had stripped the coal and 
removed the dirt and completed their other preliminary 
work they discharged the union labor and imported 
something like fifty non-union men from Chicago and 
began mining and marketing the coal contrary to their 
agreement with the miners. . .”)) 


On the tenth of June there arrived armed guards from the 
notorious strikebreaking concern of Chicago known as the Har- 


1) Representative Denison in Congress, Quoted in “Labor”, July 1, 
1922, page 3. 


HERRIN—A LESSON IN AMERICAN CLASS WAR 117 


graves Detective Agency. These mercenaries of the Coal Barons 
were under the command of C. K. McDowell, a gunman who had 
“seen service” on the battlefields of Colorado. 

The testimony of the coroner’s jury shows that despite this 
violation of the agreement by the operators, the strikers did not 
interfere with production. But the presence of the gunmen 
made the situation critical. According to the findings of Major 
Samuel N. Hunter, personal representative of Governor Small, 
who investigated the situation for the Governor, these thugs 
made themselves masters of the public highways and treated 
roughly anybody attempting to use the roads. Major Hunter see- 
ing a large quantity of ammunition and guns stored inquired of 
McDowell about the need for the same. “This is being kept 
for ducks,” said McDowell. 


Then the State and County officials appealed to the Coal 
Company to withdraw the gunmen, for they felt that in a mining 
community which was 100% organized their presence and con- 
duct would very likely create serious difficulties. To these ap- 
_ peals Superintendent McDowell replied: “I’ve broken other 
strikes and | will break this one.” 


On Wednesday, June 21, the miners sent a group to attempt 
to win over the strikebreakers. McDowell and the armed guards 
stopped them with a volley that killed Henderson and wounded 
Pitscavith who soon died. Of this, Major Hunter testifying before 
E. J. May, arbitrator of the State Industrial Commission, said: 


“Mr. McDowell telephoned me the afternoon of 
June 21, the day before the riots and said they killed 
two or three union men. Personal investigation has 
developed that the men were shot down by McDowell.” 


This inflamed the striking miners. Two of their comrades, 
peaceful and unarmed, had been killed by the gunmen. They 
had been terrorized. They had been insulted and intimidated. 


118 THE GOVERNMENT—ST RIKEBREAKER 


They had been deprived of the right to work for any but a star- 
vation wage. The miners revolted. They were bent on settling 
matters. And they did. 


Early next morning miners from all sections of the county 
flocked into the vicinity of Herrin. Congressman Denison thus 
described the scene: 


“Early Thursday morning they marched to the strip 
mine aud made an assault upon it. After a few rounds 
of gunfire the strikebreakers surrendered. They were 
marched to Herrin and Marion and deported. 

“There is a great deal of confusion and unsupported 
statements as to what happened during the miners’ 
RAV CUse vet. ie 


But after the battle was over there were nineteen strike- 
breakers dead—a gory monument to the coal Operators’ mad 
lust for profits. The Coroner’s Jury investigated the case and 
found that the Coal Company was guilty. On it rested the whole 
responsibility for the explosion. 

Then came lurid paintings of horror in the employers’ press 
thruout the country. “Revenge” was the battle cry of the ca- 
pitalists. The number of killings were grossly exaggerated and 
rivers and woods were brought in to give the affair a wild touch. 
However, the real facts were well pointed out by a surviving 
strikebreaker: 


“The people to shoot are the mine owners who lied 
to get us down here and make us do scab work. I tried 
to leave the mine when I found what I have been brought 
from Chicago for, but the guards wouldn’t let me go. 
The guards in the pit with us shot to death two union 
miners Wednesday before the union men surrounded 
us.’’3) 


2) Ibid, page 3. 
3) Ibid, page 3. ery tae 3 ee ti 


HERRIN—A LESSON IN AMERICAN CLASS WAR_ 119 


But to the press and the Chambers of Commerce and the 
President the truth did not matter. The workers were guilty 
of a capital crime. In the eyes of the employers denying 
strikebreakers a “right to work” that is denying them a right to 
rob the workingmen of food for themselves and their families— 
is a crime punishable by imprisonment. But denying strike- 
breakers a right to live and shoot down peaceful and unarmed 
union men is a crime whose horrors defy description. 


The Chorus of Revenge 


On the day after the battle the employers of the country 
began a savage campaign of reckless vituperation. They clamored 
for merciless retribution. The very next morning the notorious 
Associated Employers of Indianapolis, one of the leaders in the 
open-shop drive of the capitalists, issued a statement urging the 


“red blooded citizenship to wire and write Governor 
Small urging him to afford the fullest possible protec- 
tion to life and property in the legitimate mining of 
coal, notwithstanding the miners’ union. We strongly 
suggest also that you bring the entire situation before 
each society, club, lodge, organization and church to 
which you belong, and urge that they shall either act for 
their membership or have the individual members send 
similar telegrams and letters. This is part of a national 
effort that is being made to condemn and forever stamp 
out disloyal propaganda and teachings that are primsar- 
ily responsible for such horrifying and un-American out- 
breaks as that just experienced by the Southern Illinois 
Coal Company, merely because it was not operating a 
union mine.) (Our Italics). 


Soon the labor-hating Illinois Chamber of Commerce took 
over the direction of this campaign. It organized a drive to raise 
$25,000 to pay for the prosecution of the miners of Herrin. A 


4) The Nation, October 11, 1922, page 358. 


120 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


plan of energetic publicity was prepared and the propagandists 
went to work to “get” labor. In one of its bulletins this Chamber 
of Commerce made a special boast of preserving the good name 
of Illinois thru such practical slogans as: 


“1. The punishment of the murderers in the 
Herrin massacre. 

“2. <A State police for [linois. 

“3. Making Illinois the safest spot on earth in 
which-to invest money.’”? 


A huge poster, bearing a map of the State of Illinois and a 
picture of John H. Camlin, President of the Chamber, was given 
wide circulation. The map bore the inscription “What will you 
do to help remove this blot?’ Under this inscription there was 
a blot indicating the location of Williamson County. Beneath 
the picture of the map was a quotation from a declaration of 
President Camlin to the effect that 


“The rest of the world is doing al] the talking and 
passing all the resolutions necessary. We in Illinois 
must furnish the finances for the detection and prosecu- 
tion of the Herrin murderers.” 


The “Schrecklichkeit” Campaign took on gigantic propor- 
tions as pictured by the Illinois Chamber of Commerce. 


“Not since America entered the World War has 
the press of the country been so outspoken and unanim- 
ous in its support of any undertaking as it has in the 
-case of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce campaign 
to raise funds to remove the blot of the Herrin massacre. 
From President Harding’s own paper, the Marion Star, 
to the big metropolitan dailies and the country weeklies 
in the most sparsely populated States, every editor in the 


5) Progress Report, Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Vol. III, Report 
No. 11, Sept. 1, 1922. 
6) Ibid. 


HERRIN—A LESSON IN AMERICAN CLASS WAR 121 


land, apparently, has expressed his opinion, and with- 
out even one single exception these opinions of editors 
in other states have been congratulatory.’ 


Of course, President Harding was not to be left out in the 
cold when it came to punishing workers in the name of the “law 
and order” of dividends. On August 19, John H. Camlin sent 
a telegram to Harding in which he said: 


“The Illinois Chamber of Commerce is raising a 
fund for investigation and prosecution and will make 
certain that every effort humanly possible is put forth 
to remove this blot from our State. Our Attorney 
General has volunteered to do all in his power to bring 
the guilty to justice provided sufficient funds are fur- 
nished him for the undertaking. We propose to fur- 
nish him with the necessary funds. The business men 
of Illinois are confident that in this undertaking they 
have your sympathy and commendation. . .”®) (Our 
Italics). 


Warren Gamaliel Harding made haste to reply. In_ his 
telegram of August 22 to “My Dear Mr. Camlin” he declared: 


“I have your telegram of August 19 and note with 
genuine interest the activities of your association to see 
that justice is done in Williamson County. I was not 
aware of the activities which are under way to re-estab- 
lish Justice in that community. I had only the public 
view of a horrible crime which has thus far been ig- 
nored. 

“It is a gratifying thing to know that there is a de- 
termination that justice shall be done. It was extremely 
necessary to refer to the affair in my address to the Con- 
gress, because the general public did not seem to know 
that the Federal Government was powerless to act in 


7) The Illinois Journal of Commerce, October 1922, page 12. 
8) Progress Report No. 11, [linois Chamber of Commerce, September 
1, 1922. 


122 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


that matter and it was unbearable to have a widespread 
impression that the Federal Government was willing or 
purposely ignoring that inexcusable crime. 


“There is of course a conscience in Illinois which 
will not tolerate such a disgraceful thing. Jt will be 
very pleasing to me and reassuring to the whole coun- 
try to know that this conscience is finding expression. 


“Very truly yours, 
“Warren G. Harding, 
(Our Italics) “President.” 


And in his message of August 18th Harding went to the 
limit of denunciation and hatred when he said: 


“In that butchery of human beings, wrought in 
madness it is alleged that two aliens were murdered. 
This act adds to the outraged sense of American justice 
the humiliation which lies in the Federal Government’s 
confessed lack of authority to punish that unutterable 
crime. Had it happened in any other country, we 
would have pitied the civilization that allowed it. Just- 
ice has failed in Illinois and there will always be a blot - 
on the national shield because of Herrin.” 


Yes. Harding appeals here to the same “conscience” that 
he appealed to when the mine owners were fleecing his beloved 
public. It is the conscience of the exploiter crushing the work- 
ingman struggling for bread and shelter. But most pathetic of 
all is the eloquent plea for the two poor aliens who were misled 
into being strikebreakers and who paid the penalty for robbing 
the miners of a chance to live and for being in the company of 
hired assassins. While our President was thus shrieking for 
blood of strikers in order to atone to his Lord Mammon for the 
sin of strikers having been able to defend themselves, hundreds 
of aliens were being hounded and clubbed in many sections of 


9) Ibid. 


HERRIN—A LESSON IN AMERICAN CLASS WAR 123 


the strike zones. They were not strikebreakers. They were 
honest workingmen. Worst of all, they were strikers. 


The Indictments 


The campaign of frightfulness soon bore fruit. The Presi- 
dent had reason to be gratified from the following results boasted 
of by the Illinois Chamber of Commerce: 


“Within six weeks after the Illinois Chamber of 
Commerce started its drive for funds to finance the in- 
vestigation of the Herrin massacre, a grand jury had 


been chosen and completed its work...... The indict- 
ments returned were:!°) 
RAIN FETA EMO a ears MORALS a CE 44, 
Conspiracy to commit murder....... 58 
RASA UL LOM IMMUNO S wi talens 4 si klue. ihe Bais o4 
Ponspiracy | ANG. TEVOlbs 6 i. shes Sees sie 28 
otal eels (CC e x es 5 214 ” 


No one was indicted for the death of the union men. That 
was not counted as part of “the butchery” so vigorously con- 
demned by the nation’s Chief Executive. And why? The II- 
linois Chamber of Commerce runs to our rescue with an answer: 


“No non-union man was indicted. The reason, as 
outlined by the Grand Jury in its exhaustive report, 
was that attorneys and officials of the mine unions de- 
clined to co-operate with the forces of law and order in 
any way and refused to produce witnesses to substan- 
tiate their charges.”!) 


Apparently the Grand Jury was exhausted before it com- 
pleted its exhaustive report. They could not find evidence to 


10) Progress Report No. 12, Vol. III, Illinois Chamber of Commerce, 


October 13, 1922. 
11) The Illinois Journal of Commerce, October 1922, page 13. 


124 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


learn that two union miners had been murdered in cold blood 
by the gunmen of the Coal Company. Evidently Justice is blind 
—when it is controlled by the employing class on behalf of the 
workingmen. 

And-this despite the admissions made even by the Special 
Grand Jury which said in its report: 


“The Coal Company aggravated this resentment by 
employing armed guards and closing the public estab- 
lished highways traversing the mine property and treat- 
ing as trespassers citizens attempting to use the ac- 
customed highway. 

“The flaunting of arms in a@ community devoted 
almost exclusively to mining was conducive to strife. 
It was a challenge certain to be accepted, and for four 
or five days preceding the tragedy it was known by the 
authorities that a conflict was inevitable. . 1) (Our 
Italics). 


However, not a single indictment could be found against 
any one for-murdering the two union men one day before the 
general attack and thus bringing on the whole affair. On the 
whole the report emulated the lurid 38 page pamphlet “The 
Herrin Conspiracy,” issued by the National Coal Association. 

In the meanwhile the Regular Grand Jury has condemned 
the criticism of the local authorities made by the Special Grand 
Jury and has congratulated the union for providing “food and 
comforts for their members now in jail.”!) 

The last election has also afforded a test of sentiment in the 
community directly involved. According to a despatch to 


Labor: 


“Sheriff Melvin Thaxton who was charged with 
being on the side of the union miners, was elected 


12) Law and Labor, October 1922, page 281. 
13) New York Times, October 3, 1922, 


HERRIN—A LESSON IN AMERICAN CLASS WAR 125 


county treasurer on November 7 as a Republican by a 
majority twice as large as he received in the Harding 
landslide two years ago. The newly-elected Sheriff, 
George Galligan, has two relatives who were under 
indictment for complicity in the riot.”!™) 


A Challenge to Unionism 


That this trial has more significance than even the acute 
gravity of the situation would indicate is seen by the nation- 
wide campaign for revenge waged by the employers. The union 
men know it and they are determined that the miners on trial 
shall not fall a prey to the vengeance of the capitalists. 

Likewise, the Illinois Farmer-Labor Party at its last con- 
vention in October, 1922, has adopted the following resolution 
to rally the workers: 


, “Whereas, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, aided 
and abetted by the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, 
in their relentless ‘open’ shop campaign to crush or- 
ganized labor, have usurped the powers of the State 
Government by subsidizing the Attorney General of the 
State of Illinois and making him their willing tool in 
the prosecution of the miners at Herrin, and 

“Whereas, the miners of Herrin, driven by savage 
oppression and the cold-blooded murder of their broth- 
ers by hired gunmen—the scum of Chicago slums—to 
defend themselves, their homes and their women and 
their children by whatever means came to hand, did not 
cause one-hundredth part of the death, maiming and 
misery from preventable causes that has been deliber- 
ately visited upon the miners of Illinois by the Illinois 
Manufacturers’ Association controlling the Legislature 
and preventing passage of legislation to protect the 
lives and limbs of workers; and 

“Whereas, if proof were not already abundant 
that the only recourse open to the citizens of Herrin was 


14) Labor, November 18, 1922. 


126 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


to defend themselves, it is afforded by the fact that 
while scores of miners have been indicted, not the 
slichtest effort has been made to discover among the — 
imported thugs and gunmen, the murderers of the min- 
ers, the killing of whom was a climax of a reign of 
terror such as would cause any red-blooded American 
citizen to revolt; now therefore, be it 

“Resolved, that we condemn the persecution of the 
Herrin miners and brand it as a phase of the bitter 
warfare of the Big Business interests of this State. 2: 


Furthermore, writing under the date of September 2 in the 
Chicago Tribune, the mouthpiece of the Attorney General Brun- 
dage in the political fight against the Governor, Philip Kinsley 
said: “ 

“As the situation is developing, the murder charge 
will be lost sight of in the trial of the rioters, and the 
cause of the open shop versus union labor will be the 
central issue.” (Our Italics). 


But the brazenness of the class character of the persecution 
is most forcefully exposed in the statement of A. W. Kerr, Chief 
Counsel for the defendants: 


“We charge and charge deliberately that the report 
of the Grand Jury made in connection with the indict- 
ments returned bears all the earmarks of having been 
drafted in advance by the Attorney General at 10 South 
La Salle Street, Chicago, the Chicago address of the 
Illinois Chamber of Commerce. It runs true to form 
of the published emissions of that organized labor- 
hating organization. : 

“In all this campaign in the public print not a 
single tear has been shed by the Chamber of Commerce 
or by the Attorney General, who has been financed by 
that organization, over the death of the union miners 
involved. The only concern expressed by the Chamber 
of Commerce has been in the death of men who gave 
their addresses as the various flop houses in the city 


HERRIN—A LESSON IN AMERICAN CLASS WAR 127 


of Chicago. The only men indicted thru the agency 
of the Chamber of Commerce have been men of family 
and good repute in the county of Williamson. 


“No fault may be found with the prosecution of 
citizens for crime. The prosecution should not be fia- 
anced or the prosecution’ pursued by organizations 
highly antagonistic to those charged with the offense. 
Such a course stamps the prosecution as one of private 
persecution. . . 


“The Chamber of Commerce of Illinois and the At- 
torney General of this State, particularly during his 
term in office, have known of so many so-called mas- 
sacres in different parts of the State; but, strange as 
it may seem, and will seeim, to citizens who become ad- 
vised of the facts it is only when those so-called mas- 
sacres have a capital and labor angle that the employ- 
ing interests and the present Attorney General become 
aroused to a frenzy. 


“That is true of the so-called East St. Louis riot 
case. The Attorney General was there financed by the 
employing interests. That also had labor angles as 
well. In the so-called Herrin matter the Attorney Gen- 
eral is openly financed by the Illinois Chamber of Com- 
merce, an organization whose only record is that of an 
effort to destroy organized labor; to break the morale 
of those organizations; to take little children out of 
school before their time; to give less food to the wives 
and children of the workers of Illinois, and in this last 
instance we find the Attorney General, as usual, lending 
his frenzied aid to this employer-financed prosecution. 


“There is no other riot or massacre so called in the 
State where the Chamber of Commerce or the Attorney 
General evinced any concern. His desire for vengeance 
upon the union miners in this case has driven him to the 
point where he is no longer a prosecutor but where he 
is a special representative of those organizations who 
would break up the miners’ union and organized labor. 

“We do not propose to sit in silence and let some of 
the best and most innocent men of Williamson County 


128 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


receive unmerited punishment by any verdict obtained 
thru the machinations of the Chamber of Commerce or 
of the Attorney General, as its special representative.” 
(Our italics). | 


Brutal Class Justice 


Why all this frenzy? Why are the employers so anxious 
to get “Justice” in this case? Why this fervid, though sudden, © 
interest in human life? The answer is simple. We are con- 
cerned with the lives of strikebreakers. It is not a question of 
protecting workers. The lives of strikers are not talked about. 
What is more, we are dealing here with the strikebreakers and 
capitalist gunmen engaged in defending the right of the employ- 
ers to exploit the workers ruthlessly. We are dealing here with 
a challenge to the system of private armies. In this case we have 
another form of treason to the capitalist class. Hence the open 
alliance between the Attorney General and the Chamber of Com- 
merce. Hence the yell for revenge from President Harding 
~ down. 

When gunmen slaughter workers there is no protest. Then 
the sanctity of human life mysteriously vanishes. At Ludlow 
the fire of the machine guns operated by gunmen under the lead- 
ership of the inflamous Pat Hamrock murdered women and 
children of striking miners, And where is Pat Hamrock the 
assassin of the workers today? Free! Free to continue his 
slaughtering of the workers. Of course then it is in the name of 
Law and Order, unless Pat Hamrock wants to say “law or no 
law’, as he did when he drove Foster out of Colorado. 

At Calumet, at McKees Rocks, at Pine Creek, at Nashua and 
in West Virginia scores of workers have been butchered to 
guard the profits of the employers. Did the Chamber of Com- 
merce protest then? Did any President condemn the murderers 
in special messages to Congress? Was life in danger then? No, 
private property was in danger—so said the capitalists and their 


HERRIN—A LESSON IN AMERICAN CLASS WAR 129 


lawmakers. And the workers had to pay with their lives. But 
why go back to the struggles of yesterday? Here is a case in 
another area of the same miners’ strike. Who paid the price 
here? Who is paying it now? Why all the silence about this 
massacre and the storm about Herrin? The facts of the case 


answer these questions, as shown by the local Miners’ Defense 
Committee: 


“When the coal strike was started on April 1, the 
Richland Coal mines at Cliftonville were organized and 
went on strike. Shortly after the strike started the com- 
pany commenced operations and evicted the miners 
from their homes on the mining property. The miners 
started a tent colony a short distance from the mine. 
Armed guards were brought into and stationed around 
the property and they had many disputes with the min- 
ers in the tent colony. Attempts were made to break 
up the colony, but the miners stuck. 


“Some say as many as a 1000 were in the Clifton- 
ville March, others put the figures at less than 600. All 
the accounts of the march indicated that the men in the 
procession had assumed a mixed conduct of festivity 
and seriousness. It is almost an established custom 
amongst the foreign element of the miners in the east- 
ern field to march or parade on the slightest provoca- 
tion. In times of strike they march from town to town. 
In times of peace, various holidays are the signal for 
hundreds to turn out. Marching to the coal miners 
is both a recreation from their dreary toil in the mines 
and a stimulant to solidarity when a strike is on. And 
these marches are always marshalled by good humor. 
Thus it is that the march of the Cliftonville mine was 
rather a parade in which the miners from the strongly 
organized district of Avella, Pennsylvania, sought to 
express their sympathy and solidarity with the evicted 
miners of Cliftonville... . 


“The march of the miners was heralded in ad- 
vance and long before their objective was reached the 


130 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


heavily armed guards had assembled plentifully sup- 
plied with gas bombs. d 

“The guards opened the fight at the first sight of 
the miners, but before they were aware of it, the tipple 
had been stormed by mere weight of numbers. Miners 
climbed to the top with a flag and were buried in the 
debris of a terrific explosion. They had walked into 
a deadly trap. The tipple was destroyed by guards and 
not the miners. 

“Only one — Sheriff Duvall — of those guarding 
the mine was killed. Six is the official toll of the losses 
on the side of the miners. But this count is open to 
suspicion. ; ; 

“Sheriff Duvall, who was killed, was at the time of 
his death under a charge of malfeasance in office, This 
charge covers a multitude of sins preferred against the 
said Duvall—ranging from protection of bootleggers 
to extorting money from any other outlawed occupa- 
tions. Duvall, it is said, was opposed to the union 
miners and deputized all the gunmen at the mines. That 
no one will be prosecuted for the death of the six min- 
ers (officially listed) goes without saying. 

“At the present time there are about 160 men held 
in connection with the Cliftonville trouble and 60 in ad- 
dition to these are named in indictments but not yet ap- 
prehended . . . Sixty of the 220 indicted are charged 
with murder. The others are charged with various of- 
fenses ranging from second degree murder to rioting. 

“John Kaminski, 19 year old Russian boy, the 
first of the 220 union miners indicted in various degrees 
for the Cliftonville battle of July 17th, is on trial for 
his life at Wellsburg, West Virginia. A change of venue 
to another county has been denied although the strong 
prejudice against the defendants is so obvious that it is 
a public byword. Besides this prejudice there exists a 
fear by anyone who might sympathize with the indicted 
men to express their opinion publicly.” 


15) Bulletin of the Miners’ Defense Committee, Sub. Dist. 5 of Dist. 
6, October 27, 1922. 


HERRIN—A LESSON IN AMERICAN CLASS WAR 131 


Now, who will organize to remove this blot from our na- 
tional escutcheon? Who will begin a campaign to secure a 
proper defense for the hundreds of miners? 

The case of Cliftonville teaches many a lesson when com- 
pared with Herrin. Here was an industrial battle of first mag- 
nitude. In this case, unlike the case of Herrin, the local public 
opinion, whatever of it that is permitted to exist, is all against 
the workers. We wonder whether Daugherty will send his agents 
into Cliftonville to see to it that life is properly protected. Let 
no one lock forward to disappointments. Daugherty will do 
nothing of the kind in this case. Here the lives of strikers and 
not strikebreakers are concerned. Daugherty sees no danger 
here! 

In Cliftonville, unlike Herrin, the loss in killed was over- 
whelmingly on the side of the union. The miners believe that 
bodies of strikers were carted away to hide the magnitude of the 
loss. The very proportion of the losses and the manner in 
which the miners met death indicates positively that the strikers 
were trapped and led to their death by the gunmen. 

Only in the sense that the gunmen were here also respon- 
sible for the loss of life is Cliftonville similar to Herrin. In 
every other way the tables are turned on the strikers with the 
strikers being at the very bottom and getting the worst of it. 

Will any Chamber of Commerce initiate a drive to punish 
the guilty? And what will the Government do? The answer 
of the Government has already been given. A _ strikebreaker 
has lost his life. The workers must pay for it, despite the fact 
that they have already paid dearly in the loss of life at the mine. 
The answer of the Government is jail and the gallows for hun- 
dreds of strikers. Not a single gunman will be punished for the 
massacre of the peaceful union men. The answer of the Gov- 
ernment is the answer of a strikebreaking agency drunk with 
power. Death to the union. men and freedom for the gunmen 


132 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


that is the answer of the Government in the massacre of Clifton- 
ville! 


The Government’s plea for the sacredness of life holds good 
when the loss of life can be translated into a loss of profits. 
Despite the fact that official investigation has shown that the 
Operators are responsible for the loss of the lives of ‘scores of 
miners in the Argonaut (California) and Spangler (Pennsyl- 
vania) disasters, the champions of the sacredness of human life 
who have howled so much for the death of the union miners of 
Herrin who have dared to defend their lives against capitalist 
gunmen, have not taken a single step to visit justice on the guilty 
mine owners for the deaths. 


And talking about blots on the shield of the State of II- 
linois, we might remind ourselves of the Virden massacre. On 
October 12, 1898, gunmen employed by the Chicago-Virden coal 
company shot down union miners during a strike. The company 
built a stockade around its property and put sixty gunmen in 
charge of it. The agents of the Operators lured one hundred 
and fifty workers into the stockade after assuring them that 
there was no labor trouble at hand. But trouble did follow. 
The gunmen armed with Winchester rifles opened fire on the 
strikers and killed twelve and wounded from thirty to forty. 
These mercenaries had committed so high-handed a crime that 
John R. Turner who was then Governor of Illinois publicly de- 
nounced them. He said: 


“T therefore, charge the owners and managers of 
this company as being lawbreakers and morally and 
criminally responsible for the bloodshed and disgrace 
to our State, and I further charge every man in their 
employ, as detective or guard in the stockade, or on the 
train, who participated in this fiendish outrage, as guilty 
of murder.” 


HERRIN—A LESSON IN AMERICAN CLASS WAR 133 


Yet the Illinois Chamber of Commerce holds that Herrin is 
a blot on the State of Illinois and the first blot at that. Virden 
is only one of the many real blots on the State of Illinois put 
there by the employing class. 


Conclusion. 


At Herrin the working class of America challenged the 
system of private armies employed by the capitalist class in 
America. And they challenged this system effectively if the 
number of gunmen who paid with their lives is a criterion. The 
frenzied and wrathful onslaught of the capitalists in the wake 
of this battle proves this conclusively. 

But it is the aftermath of Herrin that has many a lesson in 
store for the American workingmen. 

First of all, the workers have learned that the capitalists will 
resort to any methods; they will move heaven and earth to main- 
tain their labor-crushing armies. 

Secondly, the Government itself will put at the disposal of 
the employers all its military and judiciary powers—all its 
powers of State to aid the capitalists in the perpetuation of this 
system of mercenaries. 

Finally, the workers of America, in preparing to rid them- 
selves of this infamous system of strikebreakers, must not be 
misled by all the frantic howling about the sacredness of life 
on the part of the servants of the employing class. To the em- 
ploying class life is sacred when it enhances profits. When life 
does not enhance profits it is worthless. And Herrin proves 
this beyond a doubt. 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE 


“Michigan, Hell! We are out to bust the unions— 
all we ask, is to be let alone. . .”—From the reply of 
President Mapother of the Louisville and Nashville 
Railroad to the entreaties of Governor Groesbeck of 
Michigan for coal cars. 


Ae possesses the greatest railway system in the world. 

Our railway mileage is 264,373 or 35% of the world’s 
total railway mileage and over five times the size of the railways 
total railway mileage and over five times the size of the railways 
of Russia which has the next largest system. 

The history of the American railways is a history of cor- 
ruption and tyranny on one side and thrilling struggle on the 
other. The records of the railway corporations reek with graft, 
with outright ownership of legislatures, and with wholesale 
robberies involving loot, in land alone, larger than many coun- 
tries. The annals of the railway workers abound in the most 
inspiring battles against unutterable exploitation and oppression. 
Finally, in the class conflicts of no other industry has the Gov- 
ernment so steadily and so generously thrown in all of its re- 
sources against the workers. 

Over 400,000 men were involved in the last strike of the 
railway shop hands. This was the first national railway strike 
in America. Like the textile and the mine strikes it was a strike 
to resist wage reductions and union-smashing. The attack of 
the railroad capitalists, like the assault of the textile and coal 
barons, was part of the general offensive, the nation-wide open- 

134 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE = 135 


shop drive, of the employing class to force starvation wages and 
degrading conditions on the working class. 

The national shop crafts’ strike of 1922, its bitterness, the 
arrogance of the employers, the ruthlessness and magnitude of 
the Government suppression and the militancy of the workers— 
cannot be properly estimated without an insight into some of 
the history of the American railroads. 


Some Railroad History 
Arthur E. Holder, author of a “History of Railroad Strikes 


Since 1877” gives us the following picture of railroad develop- 
ment: 


“Tt is still related that during a lull of the general 
assembly of that State, an honest, but very unsophisti- 
cated member of the assembly from one of the Dutch 
counties, arose to his feet and brawled, ‘Well, Mr. 
Speaker, if Tom Scott, President of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad, don’t want anything more from this ’ere Le- 
gislature, I move you, Sir, that we do now ad- 
journ’.”)) 


This is the way the American railroads have been developed 
according to Fremont Older: 


“The entire State of California was politically con- 
trolled by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. In 
order to thoroughly dominate the State, it not only con- 
trolled the Legislature, the courts, the municipal Gov- 
ernment, which included Coroners, sheriffs, boards of 
supervisors, in fact all State and County officials, but 
it also had complete control of the newspapers of the 
State as was possible, and thru them it controlled pub- 
lic opinion.””?) 


1) Locomotive Engineers’ Journal, September 1922, page 662. 
2) Fremont Older, quoted by F. J. Dunleavy in “The History of Ameri- 
can Railroads.” Page 6. 


136 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


The demigods of early railroad finance, “the builders of the 
continent,” were past masters in the capitalist art of organizing 
a dictatorship over the masses and making the worker pay for 
the very maintenance of this rule by the employing class. They 
set an example for the Lorees, Mapothers and DeWitt Cuylers 
to emulate. 


These “builders of the continent” were presented by the 
Government with huge areas of land which today, capitalized as 
a part of the railroad property, serve as a further means of rob- 
bing the workers thru billions of dollars in interest and dividend 
payments. The extent to which the Government gave away land 
to the western railway corporations can be seen from the fol- 
lowing facts. The free land gifts, thru Federal and Texas grants, 
totalled 312,000 square miles. This is an area in excess of the six 
New England States, the five North Atlantic States, the three 
South Atlantic States, and the District of Columbia. The land 
given away to the railroad capitalists is 137,000 square miles 
more than the area of Turkey, 50,000 square miles more than 
the area of the whole Japanese Empire, 192,000 square miles 
more than the area of Italy, and 100,000 square miles in excess 
of the area of Germany or France before the war.*) 


These large empires of land are today part of the invest- 
ment of the railway corporations, investment on which the Amer- 
ican workers have to pay in low wages, intolerable working 
conditions, huge dividends, and exorbitant interest rates. Un- 
der capitalism, dividends must continue at all costs—to the 
working masses. How this condition is maintained is well shown 
by the following analysis of Frank Julian Warne, the noted rail- 
way expert: 


3) Railroad Revenues and Expenses, Hearing Before the Committee 
on Interstate Commerce, United States Senate, 67th Congress, Pursuant to 
Senate Resolution 23, Volume III, pages 1436-1437. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE — 137 


“Practices and methods of the railroads in book- 
value creation are so numerous as to prevent even their 
enumeration here. Merely by bookkeeping entries mil- 
lions of dollars of value are solemnly recorded by the 
scratches of the pen as real values. Simply by trans- 
ferring on books a record of fictitious ownership of 
securities as between subsidiary companies of the same 
holding company, as in the case of the New Haven 
system, millions upon millions of dollars of imaginary 
value come into existence. Thru committees of valua- 
tion, by the employment of so-called valuation ex- 
perts, and by the manipulation of securities by financial 
and investment houses still other values, running into 
the hundreds and thousands of millions, are created 
over night, and upon these the American people are 
asked to pay not imaginary tribute but the hard-earned 
coin of the realm.’ 


Thru these methods of highly skilled thievery, the railroads 
have plundered the Government treasury, and increased their 
values. And now the railway magnates are demanding that the 
workingmen tolerate repeated wage reductions to guarantee fa- 
bulous profits on such investments! 

These railroads have also padded their expenses in order 
to conceal their real profits and have a further justification for 
wage cuts, as Mr. Warne has shown: 


“The average increase in total maintenance from 
1915 to 1917, the two years immediately preceding 
Federal control, was $118,000,000. From 1917 to 1919, 
two years of Federal operation, this increase was $435.,- 
300,00. In the single year 1920, during six months 
of which the roads were under private operation but 
with the Government guarantee, the increase over the 
very large increase for 1919 exceeded $627,000,000.”*) 


4) Ibid, page 1449. 
5) Ibid, page 1091. 


ee 


138 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


The railroad companies also own numerous supply houses, 
coal mines, and are in a closely knit form of interlocking di- 
rectorates. In effect this means that the railway companies buy 
many supplies from companies which they themselves own, pay 
handsome prices for these and thus raise the expenses of 
railway operation. They also slash the wages in hundreds of 
these subsidiaries and then appear before the Government boards 
pointing out that the wage level outside the railway industry is 
lower and therefore should also be cut on the railways. 

As Mr. Warne has clearly pointed out: 


“There are innumerable cases in which railway di- 
rectors and other officials of the transportation company 
also occupy directorates in supply companies or are 
otherwise interested, usually as bondholders or stock- 
holders. Briefly, this relation is one in which the prac- 
tical effect is of an individual buying from and selling 
to himself. Cases could be quoted from official reports 
showing the effects of the finances of the Railway Com- 
pany of this dual relation.”®) (Our Italics). 


Even to attempt to portray an adequate picture of the gi- 
gantic lootings, the enormous frauds, the manipulations, the 
watered-stock deals of the railroads complaining of their poverty 
and shrieking for lower wages, would fill volumes. 

The railroad corporations are gourmands even in the ca- 
pitalist world of plunder. They have always had to have their 


_ pound of flesh—and more!’ When the country entered the Eu- 


ropean War the reckless inefficiency of the railroads compelled 
the government to take them over—but only at an exorbitant 
rental of $906,000,000 a year. The railroads did not stop here 
accerding to Mr. Warne. He found that: 


“Expenses simply ran riot without check and seem- 
ingly with the purpose, as many have charged, of dis- 


6) Ibid, page 1268. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE = 139 


crediting for the future any form of Government control 
or ownership of the railroads of the country. . .”7) 


With the armistice came the return of the railroads to private 
hands. The railway corporations then succeeded in putting over 
the Esch-Cummins Act. This was one of the greatest acts of 
plunder in a history replete with reckless robberies. Speaking 
on this act of 1920, Congressman Huddleston said: 


“So far as I know it is not claimed by anyone that 
the Transportation Act originated in Congress. Its real 
origin was in banks, railroad lawyers and other lobby- 
ists. 


“By the Transportation Act, the Treasury was 
opened to the railroads. Under Section 202, $200,- 
000,000 was appropriated to pay their claims. Under 
Section 209, the guarantee section, $631,000,000 of 
government gifts to the railroads are already in sight, 
and the amount will probably reach $800,000,000. 
Under Section 210, public funds to the amount of $300,- 
000,000 were placed at the disposition of the railroads 
as loans. These vast sums must come out of the public 
funds, out of the taxpayers’ money. To them must be 
added the provision of the act upon which the rates 
were increased so as to yield 6 per cent. upon railroad 
stock, water, fraudulent capitalization, and all, aggre- 
gating $18,900,000,000, whereas it was recently com- 
puted, that the value of all stocks, bonds, and other 
railroad securities, including complete ownership, ag- 
eregated only $8,000,000,000. Under the increase of 
rates made in the fall of 1920 it was estimated that over 
$1,500,000.000 would be taken directly from the pockets 
of the consumers and that this amount would in the end 
increase the cost of living and doing business, $6,000,- 
000,000 annually.” 
7) Railroad Revenues and Expenses, U. S. Senate, 67th Congress, Vo! 
Ill, page 1124. 


140 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


The extent to which the railroads exploited the workers 
defies description. Not even the Esch-Cummins Billion Dollar 
Bonus could satiate their greed for profits. In violation of this 
act, they resort to the notorious procedure known as “farming 
out” of repair work. In this way the railroads were able to in- 
flate the cost of operation, for these dummy repair contractors 
charged exceedingly high prices. What is more, the railroads 
were thus enabled to deprive the union men of work, lay them off 
and thus undermine the union strength. In one case the Erie 
Railroad farmed out its repair work to a Jersey City manure 
dealer. 


From findings of the Interstate Commerce Commission, 
Mr. Warne, has exposed the huge fraud of this game. 


“It is known that the average total cost of repairs 
at all shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad (excluding 
cost of additions and betterments) was $7,415, and at 
the Baldwin shop $22,060, the average increase in cost 
being stated as $13,924, The total increased cost on 71 
locomotives of this Lis type receiving class 3 repairs at 
Baldwin’s is stated as $988,582. . . The cost of these 
additions and betterments amounted to $13,003 out of 
the total cost of $4,622,085, giving the net total cost of 
repairs as $4,609,082 and an average cost of repairs of 
the 200 Pennsylvania locomotives in the Baldwin shops 
of $23,045. 

“Out of approximately 175 large railroad com- 
panies at least 44 made contracts with “outside” shops 
during the six months of private operation under the 
Government guarantee for the repair of equipment.”®) 


Thru interlocking directorates, stock ownership and sundry 
other devices the railroads were thus paying themselves more 
profits in a round about way. This is still continued, despite 


8) Ibid, page 1224. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE 141 


the fact that even the Railroad Labor Board has been forced to 
admit that this procedure is illegal and to condemn it. 

On March 31, 1922, the Interstate Commerce Commission 
found that the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads 
were letting out repair work and paying more than double for it. 
The Commission declared that: 


“From the returns of 108 of the locomotives sent 
to the contract shops for repair, costs were found to 
range in averages of $20,189.21 at the American shops; 
$25,277.58 at the Baldwin; $17,072.58 at Lima and 
$20,631.38 at Rome, with a general average of $21,- 
912.33, including freight charges on the locomotives, 
such material as respondents furnished, and respon- 
dents’ inspection. . . The corresponding cost of 
similar repairs on 329 locomotives in respondent’s 
shops is computed to have averaged $5,927.45, or 
$15,984.88 less than the general average contract cost.” 


The poor railroads were able and glad to pay from three 
to four times the cost of repair as long as they could disrupt 


the union. 


The Railroad Labor Board Steps in 


In this campaign of exploiting the working class the rail- 
roads received the tacit and active support of the Government. 
The Railroad Labor Board, established in accordance with the 
provisions of the Esch-Cummins Act, hastened to aid the rail- 
road capitalists with timely wage-cuts and by repeatedly rob- 
bing the workers of their hard-won working conditions. This 
was done as soon as the war readjustment period was over. 


Under the leadership of the New York Central, on March 
19, 1921, the railroads petitioned the Railroad Labor Board for 
wage decreases. This appeal did not fall on deaf ears, as the 
U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said: 


142 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“The Board granted decreases in| wages, asserting 
that business conditions had changed; that there had 
been a decrease in the cost of living;) and that wages 
for similar work in other fields had decreased. The 
reductions ranged from 7 to 18 per cent. averaging ap- 
proximately 12 per cent, and are estimated to save the 
roads approximately $400,000,000 annually.’®? 


During the war, because of the inestimable importance of 
railroad labor and of the great danger which a railway strike 
would be to all industry, the workers made many gains. They 
won improved working conditions and compelled the Government 
to increase their wages which had been widely admitted to be 
below the minimum level. With the first approach of depres- 
sion, the Association of Railway Executives demanded that the 
Railroad Labor Board abolish the National Agreement, a unified 
set of working conditions won by the workers in the war period. 
The railway unions protested that this would not only rob the 
workers of the gains they had previously made but it would 
also “expose the local organizations on the several carriers to 
the entire power and weight of all the carriers acting thru the 
Association of Railway Executives on the conferring carrier.” 
They protested against such a “disparity of force.” But that 
was just what the capitalists wanted and that was just what they 
got. On April 14, 1921, the Railroad Labor Board rendered 
Decision No. 119, abolishing the National Agreements. 


Decision No. 222 followed in quick order on August 11, 
1921. This robbed the workers of many more conditions of 
work that they had won thru bitter struggle. Mr. A. O. Whar- 
ton, representing labor on the Board found the decision so un- 
just to the workers that he filed a dissenting opinion—the first 
one made public. He said: 


9) Bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 303, page 90. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE . 143 


“It does not appear either just or reasonable that 
conditions which have been in effect from ten to twenty 
years and even longer, established as a result of nego- 
tiations and mutual agreement between employers and — 
employees, and not infrequently established where no 
organization of employees existed, can now be decided 
as unjust and unreasonable.’”°) 


Here the Government, thru its agency, the Railway Labor 
Board, went out of its way not only to deprive the workers out 
of conditions they won in years of struggle, but even to rob the 
workers of conditions voluntarily granted to the workers by the 
capitalists to avoid strikes. 

The wage-cutting and union-smashing went on apace. On 
February 12th, Lincoln’s Birthday, the Railway Board presented 
the capitalists with a bonus of $300,000 by putting the signal- 
men on a 10-hour day basis and dropping time and a half pay 
for Sunday work. On February 22nd, Washington’s Birthday, the 
Board continued its Americanization process by eliminating 
extra wages for the Stationary Firemen and Oilers until after 
the tenth hour. 


All the railway unions except the Brotherhoods and the 
Switchmen’s Union have had two reductions from the peak of 
railway wages. This procedure was followed for two reasons. 
First, to keep the workers divided and secondly to avoid a con- 
test with those workers who stood the best chance of winning a 
conflict with the rail magnates. And now, the Railroad Labor 
Board is considering the reduction of the wages of these work- 
ers. Postponed punishment is the best reward for division in 
the ranks of labor in the eyes of the Government. 

In 1922 came the wage slashes which caused the workers 
to revolt. In Decision No. 1028, May 24, involving the Main- 
tenance of Way Employees, the Railroad Board ordered wages 


10) Ibid, page 95. 


144, THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


to be paid at a rate varying from 23 to 35 cents an hour, making 
the average 32.7 cents an hour. pared the most improbable 
condition, that is full time employment, this meant a wage of 
$15.62 per week. Those workers receiving the minimum pay 
would then be getting $11.04 per week or $574.08 a year on the 
assumption of full time work. 

Decision Number 1036 rendered on June 5, 1922 cut the 
wages of the shopmen to the bone. Decision Number 1074, 
rendered June 10th, took the same gentle care of the freight 
handlers, railway clerks, signalmen, express and station em- 
ployees, etc. 

That these decisions meant a terriffic loss to the wore is 
seen from the following table prepared by the Railway Em- 
ployees Department of the American Federation of Labor: 


“What the United States Railroad Board has done 
to the various classes of employees since it began to 
function in 1920 is told in reduced earnings caused by 
decisions 147, 222, 501, 707, 725, 1028, 1036, and 1074 
as compiled by the Railway Employees Department. 
Any schoolboy can figure what this means in shorter 
food rations, less clothing and poorer housing. Here 
is what has been taken away annually from the workers 
in wages alone:!!) 


HOP Cratisl es hike pears we kta $371,817,996 
Maintenance of Way Employees 315,803,835 
Clerks & Freight Handlers...... 146,699,147 
Pignalmen ym ele Mihai tat 10,373,168 
Stationary Firemen and Oilers.. 2,145,235 
Other Ralway Employees...... 96,352,490 

Total Wage Loss ......... $943,191,871” 


Exclusive of the loss in being deprived of working condi- 
tions this meant that the Government took away almost a billion 


11) Labor—July 29, 1922. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE 145” . 


dollars from the already underpaid workers and handed it over 
to the already fabulously wealthy railroad capitalists. And yet 
some labor leaders fervently, to be very respectful, propagandize 
their union members that we have a democratic government. But 
the actions of this employing class government speak louder 
than even the fraudulent words of the labor union bureaucracy! 


The Shop Crafts Revolt 


These decisions completely unmasked the Railroad Labor 
Board as a strikebreaking agency. Ina spirited statement the 
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers said: 


“The Board has maintained an outward appearance 
of unity for more than a year, largely because the La- 
bor representatives have not protested the repeated 
violations of its decisions by the carriers.... 

“The employees feel that the representatives of the 
‘public’ appointed to the Board by President Harding 
are not greatly different in interest and sympathy from 
the spokesmen for the railroads, and they refuse to play 
the game with the cards stacked against them.” 


(Our Italics). 


The Railway Labor Board saw the class nature of the im- 
pending conflict and denounced the representatives of labor for 
‘even making a dissenting opinion. The Board declared that: 


“The minority is sowing some of the tiny seeds 
that have germinated and blossomed into industrial 
anafchy in Russia, when they make such statements as 
this: ‘They (the economic laws) are simply a descrip- 
tion of the way in which business and industry has 
worked to date, and it has worked out very badly for 
human life’.””!) 


12) Ibid, July 15, 1922. 
13) American Railroads, Vol. III, No. 7, June 26, 1922. 


is 


146 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


The overwhelming majority, over 90 per cent of the shop 
crafts and the maintenance of way men voted for a strike. Here 
the Railroad Labor Board aimed at dividing the workers. With 
the help of the reactionary President Grable (who fortunately 
has since then been thrown out of office by a convention of the 
union) of the Maintenance of Way Men, they succeeded in stop- 
ping the strike of these lowest paid workers. The Government 
promised to review the appeal of these workers in a rehearing on 
the condition that the strike be called off. The traitor and his 
henchmen prevented the maintenance of way men from striking, 
pending the “new investigation,” despite the fact that they had 
expressed themselves most emphatically for a strike. 


But the shopmen struck and they struck hard. More than 
400,000 workers deserted the shops on July Ist. The first na- 
tional railway strike in America was begun. That this was to be 
a battle royal was evident. The men had been chafing to meet 
the challenge of the employers and their strikebreaking govern- 
ment. They were continually restrained by their leaders. Con- 
ditions had become unbearable. Not even their reactionary 
leadership could prevent the blow up of the powder magazine. 


The American railway workers have a splendid record of 
courageous struggle and valiant resistance against oppression. 
It was in the railway strike of 1877 that Federal troops were 
first used extensively to break strikes. It was in the Railway 
strike of 1894 that the injunction was finally christened as a 
powerful weapon of the capitalists against the workers in the 
class struggle. In the strike of 1922 the struggling” workers 
lived up to the heroism of their predecessors. And the capital- 
ist Government here displayed its class character in a most brutal 
and open fashion. It completely exposed itself as an organ of 
class oppression, as a strikebreaking agency, as an instrument 
in the hands of the employing class whose first and paramount 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE 147 


purpose is to crush the workers in revolt against capitalist 
exploitation. 


The Railways Grow Richer and the Workers Grow Poorer 


Our railroad magnates have always accompanied their ap- 
peals for wage reductions with frantic cries about their poverty. 
A comparison of the fabulous profits taken by the employers with 
the miserable working conditions and starvation wages will prove 
that this propaganda is as fraudulent as could possibly be con- 
cocted and that the Government, when it ordered wage slashes, 
was only mouthing the false phrases of its master. 

The following table prepared by the official organ of the 
Association of Railway Executives, the One Big Union of the Ex- 
ploiters of the Railway workers, is very instructive. It shows 
the number of billions of dollars of profits produced for the rail- 
way capitalists by the workers in the period of 1916-1920 in- 


clusive :™ 
Amount Paid to 


Year - Security Holders Dividend Payments Interest Payment 
1916 $7 12,844,504 $306,176,937 $406,667,567 
1917 723,701,217 320,395,779 403,305,438 
1918 671,802,544 275,336,547 396,465,997 
1919 682,606,364 278,516,908 404,089,456 
1920 699,117,872 271,725,609 427,402,263 

Total ..$3,490,072,501 $1,452,141,780 $2,037,930,721 


This grand total of close to three and a half billion dollars 
tribute was paid to the capitalists for doing nothing but owning 
the railroads. 

This is exclusive of the profits hidden by them thru bonuses, 
stock allotments and stock dividends. At the hearings before 
the Interstate Commerce Commission, Frank Julian Warne 
pointed out that the total amount paid per annum in dividends 


14) Ibid, Vol. INI, Number 1, January 31, 1922. 


148 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER - 


has, since 1898, increased 200%; that freight rates are today 
113% higher than the schedules in effect in 1913; and that wages 
are only 84.6% higher than they were in 1916. 

This is also exclusive of the huge salaries paid to the presi- 
dents and other officials for expert advice and other “expert” 
services. An example of this practice is thus presented by Mr. 
Warne: 


““As an inducement to L. F. Loree, chairman of the 
executive committee, to relinquish, after ten months’ 
service, a joint contract with the railway company and 
the ‘Frisco’ under whith he was to receive a salary of 
$75,000 per annum for a: period of five years and in ad- 
dition was to be paid a bonus of $500,000 at the expira- 
tion of the contract, he was given bonds of the railway 
company at a par value of $450,000. This was borne 
equally by the two companies, and the proportion of the 
railway company was charged to profit and loss. The 
total amount borne by the railway company in this 
transaction was $250,000.”7)5) 


No Railroad Labor Board or any other Government agency 
was called upon to pass judgment whether this wage, typical 
of many others, was in accordance with the prevailing wage paid 
“workers” of this character in other industries. Nor did any 
Government agency have anything to say about its sufficiency. 
The capitalists are not controlled by Railroad Labor Boards. 
They control the Railroad Labor Boards. They are the Railroad 
Labor Boards. 

Despite the depression of 1921 the railroads had in that 
year a net income of $615,625,619 and the figures for 1922, ac- 
cording to the Wall Street Journal, bid fair to touch the $900,- 
000,000 mark. 


15) Railroad Revenues and Expenses, Hearings Pursuant to Senate 
Resolution 23, Sixty-Seventh Congress, Vol. III, page 1160. Testimony 
of Frank Julian Warne. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE 149 


The railroad industry, like the textile and coal mining in- 
dustries and like all other industries under capitalism, is run on 
a basis of a continuous flow of dividends to the capitalists. In 
this industry, as in all other American industries, a steady income 
for the workers—let alone the full share of their product—is 
out of question. The only question before our captains of in- 
dustry is how to guarantee a steady income to the coupon clip- 
pers and interest sharks. In the railway industry this brings 
about aggravated labor difficulties, because the railways are highly 
inflated in capitalization. Then the owners demand a rate of 
profit on a total capital much of which is non-existent. There 
is only one source from where this profit can be gotten. This 
is from the products of the workers. But herein lies the dif- 
ficulty. This means a continuous intensification of the exploi- 
tation of labor. Translated into the language of the pay en- 
velope, this means also a progressively decreasing wage for the 
workers. 


Wages and Working Conditions 


Here is how the railway workers are living. These items 
are culled from the testimony presented to the Railway Labor 
Board by the noted labor lawyer, Frank P. Walsh, in the hearings 
on the last wage cut for the maintenance of way men. 


The first witness called was Mrs. Joseph Sabin of Mil- 
waukee, the wife of a section hand and mother of five children, 
three of whom are dependents and two of whom have been com- 
pelled to leave school to help support the family. The earnings 
of this railway worker ranged from $70 to $80 a month. Mrs. 
Sabin said: 


“‘When it rains he does not work, and last week he 
lost two days’ pay from this cause. One of the younger 
boys was sent home by the teacher, who said he had tu- 
berculosis. A physician who examined him said his 


150 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


illness was caused by lack of wholesome food. The 

coat I have on my back was borrowed in order that J 

could come to this hearing.” 

Another witness, Mrs. T. D. Osborn of Virginia testifying 
said: 


“T have nine children, eight at home and one mar- 
ried. The youngest is two months’ old which I have 
here in my lap. We pay $5 a month rent and our gro- 
cery bill is $80 a month. I have three children in 
school. The others are out for: want of proper cloth- 
ing. Before the last cut in wages, we managed to live 
fairly decent. I make and patch what clothing they 
have.” 


Mrs. G. R. Bunten of Illinois was forced to admit that 


“We don’t go to church and Sunday School because 
we have not got fit clothing.” 


And then Mrs. Fowler of Kansas told this tragic story: | 


“We can only afford $5 worth of meat in two weeks. 
I take in washing at home and my husband helps me at 
the tub and with ironing after his road working hours. 
I have taken as high as sixteen washings a week. We 
do this in order to send our children to school.” 


Mr. Walsh made an eloquent plea that these meagre wages be 
immediately increased. The answer of the Railroad Labor Board 
was another decrease. Mr. Walsh pleaded: 


“Higher wages must be paid at once if these people 
are to keep their heads above the poverty line and not 
lose their last hold on the pitifully low standards that 
they already have. If they are not given a wage to 
enable them to live in reasonable health and comfort 


16) Proceedings Railroad Labor Board Hearings, April 17, 1922, “La- 
bor,” April 12, 1922. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE 151 


they will be condemned to poverty, and every death 
in their family will rest upon your heads.” 


It has been calculated by the labor representatives on the 
Railway Board, on the basis of figures prepared by the United 
States Bureau of Labor Statistics, that the new wage slashes give 
almost 250,000 workers only 25.3 cents per day for food. Anent 
this condition labor members said: 


“Presumably, buying on a wholesale basis, Cook 
County, Illinois, is paying 45 cents per day for the feed- 
ing of prisoners in the jail. Evidently the track la- 
borers under the decision will secure considerably less 
than a prison ration.”!”) 


In his testimony before the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
sion on Feb. 11, 1922, Mr. Frank Julian Warne declared that, 


“The great majority of employees on the railroads 
today are not receiving a wage sufficient to support them- 
selves and their families in decency and comfort. In 
the face of intermittent employment, and in many cases 
of complete unemployment, their present wage does not 
meet even their absolutely fixed charges for food, cloth- 
ing, and shelter. 


“But for the score or more devices invented by 
railroad executives to conceal the earnings of their pro- 
perties, it would be seen that railroad operation is 
amongst our most prosperous industries, and that the 
railroads have enjoyed increasing prosperity.” 


From the following tables the great contrast between the 
poverty of the railways and the “prosperity” of the workers is 
glaringly evident. 


17) “Labor”, August 26, 1922. 


152 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Table I—Showing Average Annual Earnings of R. R. Employees 


All 
Year Employ- Engin- Fire- Conduc- Train Machin- ‘Track- Tel. 
ees eers men tors men ists men Oper. 
1900 $067 $1,161 $662 $1004 $604 $698 $311 $641 
1907 641 1,340 758 1143 745 841 370 741 
1913 ior 1,661 954 1407 976 81007 436 864 
1917 1,000 2,043 1239 1965 1237 =1394 601 1018 


1921 ©) 1,790 2,858 2102 2628 2030 2202 1072 1990 
L921 20s) eS 2,629 1892 239] 1807 1995 900 1791 

1) Represents the wages of first half of 1921 mul- 
tiplied by 2. 

2) Represents the wages of first half of 1921 mul- 
tiplied by 2 and reduced by the Railroad Labor Board 
Decision of July 1, 1921, ordering a cut ranging from 8 
to 16 per cent. 


These figures are based on the statistics of railroad com- 
panies presented to the Interstate Commerce Commission. 1900, 
1907, and 1913 are given as typical pre-war years. These figures 
also assume that there is continuous employment. They do not 
take into consideration the recent decisions depriving workers 
of overtime pay, nor the losses incurred by the workers thru the 
farming out of repair work. When we further deduct the latest 
cut—10 to 13 per cent—the actual wages received are much 
lower than these figures would indicate. 


Table II—Showing the Purchasing Power of the Average Annual 
Wages 1900-1921 


All 
Year Employ- Engin- Fire- Conduc- Train- Machin- Track- Mel. 

ees eers men tors men ists men Oper. 
1900 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 
1907 95 97 96 96 104 101 100 97 
1913 92 99 100 97 111 100 97 93 
1917 9] 91 96 101 105 103 100 82 
1921 (1) 117 9] 118 97 125 LR 128 115 
1921 (2) 105 86 108 90 113 108 110 106 


1) Represents the purchasing power of the wages 
paid in the first half of 1921 multiplied by two. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE = 153 


2) Represents the purchasing power of the wages 
received beginning July 1, 1921, in compliance with the 
wage cut ordered by the Railway Labor Board, mul- 
tiplied by two. 

This purchasing power is actually smaller than the table 
shows, for the figures presented here do not take into consider- 
ation the loss of wages suffered by the workers thru the sub- 
sequent decisions of the Railway Labor Board cutting wages and 
depriving the workers of overtime pay and other working con- 
ditions. Today, after all of these conditions, the wages of the 
railway workers actually buy less than they did in 1900. It is 
particularly interesting to note that the engineers and conductors 
who have been branded the “aristocracy of American Labor” 
have suffered most.}®) 

An examination of the wages of several classes of railway 
employees afier the latest wage cuts in comparison with the 
minimum health and decency budget set by the United States 
Bureau of Labor Statistics shows how far below this lowest 
level the mass of railway workers find themselves. 


Table I1I]—Comparison of Earnings Before and After Wage Cut 
With Cost of Health and Decency Budget in the United 
States as a@ Whole.}) 


Cost of Annual Annual Annual 

Class = of Health & Earnings Annual Earnings Deficit 
Employees Decency Before Deficit After Wage After Wage 

Budget Wage Cut Cut Cut 

eM CH oe lsat syd ars «VM Ap LOO $1,851 282 $1,776 $357 

ORES APCD iste ia cfs we diols ob 2,133 1,524 609 1,420 715 

PSC Nc he vws ssh a's Sylow 1,269 864 1,165 968 

Mech. Device Oper........ 2,133 1,314 819 1215 918 

RPE IER DS soy rela 6) 6000/4 8 0 9:4 2,133 1,134 999 1,034 1,099 

Common laborers ......... 2,133 1,035 1,098 936 1,197 


18) Congressional Record, February 10, 1922, page 2674. 


19) From Minority Opinion to Railroad Labor Board Decision, Nos. 
1028, 1036, 1074. 


154 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


The above wage rate fixed by the Railroad Labor Board 
grants the workers only 44 per cent. of this minimum standard 
as submitted by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. 


Nor should we assume that railroad wages were high or 
even sufficient before the war. When the Government took over 
the railways because of their collapse under private control a 
commission was appointed to investigate wages. This Commis- 
sion was headed by the late Franklin K. Lane, then Secretary of 
the Interior, and found that 


~~ 


“It has been a somewhat popular impression that 
railroad employees were among the highly paid work- 
ers. But figures gathered from all railroads dispose 
of this belief. Fifty-one per cent of all employed dur- 
ing December 1917 received $75 per month or less. 
and 80 per cent received $100 per month or less.” 


All the talk of the railroad corporations about the increase 
in the total amount of wages paid in recent years fails to take 
into consideration the huge increase in the number of employees. 
The increase was from 1,647,000 in 1916 to 2,174,931 in August 
1920. That this increase of employees was an advantage to the 
railroads in meeting the increased traflic is thus shown by Mr. 
Warne. 


“Briefly, this increased traffic necessitated the em- 
ployment of a larger number of men whose employment 
enabled the railroads to operate at their maximum ca- 
pacity without the investment of additional capital. 
But the wages paid these additional employees went to 
increase the total compensation which enters as a factor 
into operating expenses. They were not, however, in- 
‘creases in wages, but represent a situation heartily wel- 
comed by every railroad manager in the country. They 
should not have been confused in the public mind as 
they have been by the railroad publicity agents and 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE = 155 


other representatives of the transportation corpora- 
tions.’”?0) 


The wage policy of the railway corporations has been, as 
is the policy of all other capitalist organizations, to pay as little 
as possible to the workers. However, when the paying is done 
by somebody other than the capitalists the policy is different. 
During the war when the railroads were under Government con- 
trol, the rail magnates not only did not advocate wage cuts but 
even recommended increases. On May 10, 1918, President 
Samuel Rea of the labor-hating Pennsylvania Railroad, wrote 
to A. H. Smith, Regional Director, advocating an increase in 
wages.”!) 

Further proof that the railroad industry is not afflicted with 
a mysterious tendency towards poverty, is presented conclusively 
by the investigations of the Interstate Commerce Commission. 


“Applying to the present situation these principles 
of economics as enunciated by the Interstate Commerce 
Commission, I, (F. J. Warne), assert as a well-consi- 
dered conclusion, based upon nearly twenty years’ ex- 
perience with the accounts and practices of the rail- 
roads, that their revenues over’a period of years, aver- 
aging the so-called lean years with the good years, are 
amply sufficient to pay the standard of wages prevailing 
prior to the 1921 reduction by the United States Rail- 
road Labor Board, to meet all other legitimate expenses 
of operation, and at the same time to have a net income 
sufficient to pay a handsome return upon all the capital 
that is actually invested in the transportation indus- 
try.*) 





20) Hearings Pursuant to Senate Resolution 23, Sixty-seventh Con- 
‘gress, First Session, on “Railroad Revenues and Expenses,” Vol. III, p. 
1167. 

21) Ibid, page 1209. 

22) United States Senate, 67th Congress, Second Session, Pursuant 
to Senate Resolution 23, page 1771. 


156 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Even according to the prevailing rates of profit and degrees 
of exploitation under capitalism the railroads can pay higher 
wages. But the Government has supported the railway capital- 
ists in a campaign to slash wages and the workers on the rail- 
roads have had to pay and pay dearly. 


This situation was thus very well portrayed by the minority 
of the Railroad Board: 


“The wages fixed by the majority decision are such 
as to condemn these railway workers to lives of ex- 
treme poverty. . . It may be asking too much to urge 
that human life is in a class by itself, not to be listed 
indifferently among the costs of transportation. 


‘ .The wages most recently determined are in 


some cases less than 50 per cent of the amount needed 
for a fair standard of living. 


“Maintenance and expansion costs of the rail- 
ways must be paid, and with the ‘cordial’ and ‘patriotic’ 
co-operation of the workers; the ‘maintenance costs’ of 
the workers are considered ‘theoretical,’ when they are 
considered at all. Such is the basis for the series of 
wage decisions now being made.”?9) 


The Strike Grips the Couniry 


Exasperated by the degrading working conditions, the star- 
vation wages and the union-smashing campaign of the railroads, 
and bitterly resenting the undivided support rendered to the rail- 
way corporations by the Government the railway men gave battle 
to the employers. On June 27, 1922, B. M. Jewell, President of 
the Railway Employees Department of the American Federation 
of Labor sent the following telegram to Mr. DeWitt Cuyler: 


23) Minority Opinion Railroad Labor Board Decisions Nos. 1028, 
1036, 1074. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE _ 157 


“TY am informing you and thru you informing the 
responsible heads of the railway systems in the United 
States, and also the Pullman Company, most of whom 
are represented in the Association of Railway Execu- 
tives, that unless an immediate arrangement can be 
made: 

“1. To continue the payment of wages at present 
in force. 

“2. To restore operation under rules 6, 10, 12, 14, 
15, 46 and 177, as they existed prior to amendments 
thereof proposed in decision 222; and 

“3.. To discontinue the contracting out of work 
and shops, pending negotiations between the Associa- 
tion of Railway Executives and the Railway Employees 
Department, looking toward adjustment of those of the 
existing disputes upon these questions, a sanction of 
withdrawal from employment on July 1, 1922, as voted 
by the employees, will be unavailable.” 


The chairman of the Association of Railway Executives 
replied: 

“You demand that we accept your decision and 
reject that of the Labor Board. . . To submit now to 
your demands. . . would be to recognize your power 
and authority as greater than that of the Govern- 
ment. . . If you strike it will be against an order of 
a Governmental tribunal—it will be a strike against 
the Government of the United States.”25) 


This did not awe the workers. They had no illusions as to 
_the line up of the Government against them. Over 400,000 
members of the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, In- 
_ ternational Alliance of Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers, In- 
ternational Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders 
and Helpers of America, Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of 


24) “American Railroads”, July 13, 1922. 
25) Ibid. 


158 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


America, International Association of Railway Machinists, and 
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers struck ‘and 
tied up the repair work of the railways. These last six unions 
constitute the Federated Shop Crafts which were on strike. With- 
in a few days after the declaration of the strike these workers 
were joined by thousands of clerks and maintenance of way 
men, plumbers, freight handlers, moulders, common laborers 
and truckers. On some systems the clerks were called out, as on 
the Chesapeake & Ohio, and Norfolk & Western. By July 
17,500 non-union and 10,000 union firemen and oilers and 
stationary engineers were in the fight. This brought the num- 
bers of strikers close to the 500,000 mark. Among this number 
there were 14,000 who were members of the American Federa- 
tion of Railroad Workers—an independent union. Ninety-eight 
per cent of the men engaged in the shop-craft industries downed 
tools. These shop mechanics are the key to the whole railway 
industry. There can be no efficient train service unless the rol- 
ling stock is maintained in good order. The reserve of engines, 
without adequate repair breaks down sooner or later. And 
strikebreakers cannot maintain the railroads at a high state of 
efficiency for the service requires skilled and experienced me- 
chanics. 

The sentiment of the men for the strike was widespread and 
at a high pitch. Cincinnati is a rather conservative labor center. 
Yet it was in this atmosphere that the leaders of the striking shop 
crafts staged one of the most enthusiastic strike rallies on the 
eve of the battle. Jewell confessed then that if the workers 
voting for a strike would be in the majority a strike would be 
called, but he cautioned his audience that a- strike would mean 
jail for some of them. In answer to this one of the workers 
jumped to his feet and declared: 


“They can’t scare us fellows with threats of prison 
sentences. We will be better off in jail with three 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE — 159 


meals a day than trying to live outside on the starva- 
tion wages awarded by the Railroad Labor Board.’5) 


The sentiment for resistance was strong throughout the 
ranks in every railroad labor center. In St. Louis the women 
organized auxiliaries to the unions and energetically devoted 
themselves to keep up the fighting spirit of the strikers. This 
fighting spirit is well portrayed in the following letter sent to 
President Jewell by the Secretary of Mound City Lodge No. 144, 
Loyal Star of America, auxiliary to the Brotherhood of Railway 
Carmen, St. Louis: 


“We as wives, mothers, sisters and daughters of 
railway employees effected by these unfair decisions, 
feel that said decisions are inhuman, unjust and ab- 
solutely unacceptable. 

“We are well aware of the fact that we will be 
called upon to stand our share of hardships in case of 
a strike, but we would rather starve fighting for justice 
than to ask our breadwinners to accept such wages and 
conditions as are gradually being forced upon them 
thru the Esch-Cummins Bill and its offspring, the 
Railroad Labor Board. 

“We, therefore, wish to request and insist that 
when present strike vote is returned that you brothers 
do not hesitate to put same into effect immediately, re- 
gardless of court decisions and injunctions. 

“If labor must show capital we will fight to hold 
our rights, then there is no more delay necessary. Let 
us fight before we are gradually starved into submis- 
sion.”27) 


As the strike went on the railroads were approaching a 
state of actual collapse. The corporations then hired a huge 
army of guards to protect the incompetent strikebreakers from 


26) “Labor,” June 24, 1922. 
27) “Labor”, July 1, 1922. 


160 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


any interference with their inefficient service. They further at- 
tempted to have members of the Big Four Brotherhoods do some 
of the work of the strikers. Against this the rank and file of 
the Brotherhoods revolted. Their opposition to becoming active 
strikebreakers could not be restrained. Many of them chafed at 
working while their brothers, the shopmen, were striking. But 
their leaders restrained them from rendering any other aid ex- 
cept financial. However, when the Brotherhood members were 
put to work under the bayonets of the troops sent against their 
brothers and under the “protection” of the guns of the company 
thugmen, many of them revolted and joined the walkout. Not 
even their reactionary leaders could restrain them. 

The conditions of the service deteriorated rapidly. In some 
cases, the Brotherhood Chiefs, facing the inevitable walkout of 
their followers, took the initiative in ordering the men to walk 
out and refuse to operate trains under conditions endangering the 
lives of the travelers and the workers. The Grand Chiefs were, 
however, very careful to limit walkouts to instances entirely 
beyond their control, to conditions where the situation had be- 
come so intolerable for their members that order or no order 
the workers would revolt. 


Service Crippled and Profits Cut 


The transportation corporations resorted to the vilest pub- 
licity. They appealed to the courts and the Government for 
help in breaking the strike. The help soon came in the form 
of injunctions, troops, marshals, Government denunciations, and 
an attack on a nation-wide scale by the press. But the workers 
maintained a solid front. 

One hundred and fifty passenger and freight trains 
running in and out of Chicago were withdrawn during the first 
10 days of the strike. The Santa Fe cancelled many of its trains 
from California to Chicago. The Missouri Pacific was forced 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE 16) 


to suspend thirty passenger and many freight trains in Kansas, 
Missouri, and Nebraska. This wave of cancellation was not 
limited to the West. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas discon- 
tinued forty-seven trains. On the International and Great North- 
ern between Georgetown and Round Rock, Texas, all train service 
was discontinued. 


The history of the strike is a story of progressive deterio- 
ration of the railway service. On March 1, 1920, there were 
141,906 bad-order freight cars. Of these 78,980 required heavy 
repairs and 62,926 light. Within two weeks after the strike— 
July 15th—there were 342,078 bad-order freight cars and 271,- 
ACO required heavy repairs. Soon the Interstate Commerce Com- 
mission was compelled to acknowledge publicly that the rail- 
way service was in very bad shape, despite the protestations of 
the owners that everything was fine and growing finer and that 
the strike was wholly ineffective. 


“INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION, 


“Washington. 


August 15, 1922. 
“Dear Mr. President: 


“The effect of deferred repairs is cumulative and 
becomes increasingly felt as time goes on. The acts 
which we are called upon to administer leave little dis- 
cretion with the Commission as to enforcement when 
violations come to light. In the continuance of our 
enforcement of the law, we are taking steps and will be 
compelled to continue to proceed in a manner which 
must bring about serious withdrawals of motive power 
for service. Certain violations of the acts we report 
to the Attorney General for appropriate legal action. 
With a continuance of existing conditions these will 
be increasingly frequent.... 


“Faithfully yours, 
“C. C. McCHORD, Chairman.” 


162 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


The answer of President Harding to this violation on the 
part of the railroads of the Safety Acts was given to the workers 
in his special message of August 18th. He roundly condemned 
the strikers and praised the strikebreakers. Attorney General 
Daugherty subsequently echoed his condemnation of the work- 
ingmen. But neither took a single step to punish the railway 
capitalists for their continued violations of the law. 

And the railroad corporations went on endangering the 
lives of the travelers and blaming the strikers for whatever ac- 
cident occurred. These accidents were due to the broken-down 
equipment. This paralysis was continually intensified. In 
response to Senate Resolution 327 calling for an investigation 
of the motive power the Interstate Commerce Commission re- 
vealed, on August 29th, the desperate situation in which the 
capitalists had put the country in order to break the strike and 
the union. 


“At 717 different points they made personal in- 
spection of 4,085 locomotives. Of these 2,456 dis- 
closed defects of the varied character mentioned above, 
and more or less serious; 169 were found to be in such 
condition that they were not ‘safe to operate’, and no- 
tices were served upon the carriers under Section 6 of 
the act, requiring them to be withdrawn from service. 
Of the others, 992 were found to have defects less seri- 
ous in character, but in need of prompt attention. In 
1,295 cases defects, though not such as to give cause 
for immediate concern, were such as, in accordance 
with sound practice, should have attention. ey; 


In reality conditions were much worse, for the Commission 
was limited by a Congress that had been so generous in handing 
out millions of dollars to the railroad capitalists, to only 50 
inspectors for 70,000 locomotives. The report continues: 


“Tt is impossible for us to accurately report the 
extent of such violations, 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE 163 


“Inspection of locomotive boilers is at present 
being made in all Federal boiler locomotive inspec- 
tion districts by our inspectors, but all inspections by 
the carriers as contemplated in Section 5 of the act are 
not being made by and upon all common carriers en- 
gaged in interstate commerce. The reports from our 
inspectors indicate a very general let down in the mat- 
ter of inspection by the carriers, which gives cause for 
concern.” 


This collapse of the railway service brought in its wake 
numerous accidents. The strikers were blamed for these. Not 
a single railroad capitalist was apprehended or punished for 
the continued violation of the safety statutes. Instead, many 
innocent workers were framed up, as at Gary, hounded, beaten, 
indicted, and condemned to severe prison sentences. 

Mr. Whiting Williams who investigated the working and 
living conditions of the strikebreaker by living and working 
side by side with him in the strike said apropos of this: 


“Undoubtedly many disasters, blamed on strikers, 
have been caused by . . . ignorant workmanship.?®) 


But Harding, as Chief Executive of the country and chief 
spokesman for the railroad capitalists, saw things differently. He 
saw them only from the point of view of the profit-mad capitalist 
strikebreaker. In his message of August 18th, he praised the 
strikebreakers and denounced the workers despite the fact that 
the incompetency of the strikebreakers added to the casualties 
incurred by the breakdown of the service. Said the President: 


“Men who have refused to strike and who have 
braved insult and assault and risked their lives to serve 
a public need have been cruelly attacked and wounded 
or killed.” (Our italics). 


28) Collier’s Magazine, November 18, 1922, page 11. 


164 THE: GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


To Harding, as to all other strikebreakers, the public need 
and the profits of the exploiters are synonymous. 

The strike which, for three months, was in effect on all 
railroads has cost the railroads approximately a quarter of a 
billion of dollars in extra costs, loss of profits, and intensified 
inability to meet the growing demands for service. 

According to the Interstate Commerce Commission fifty- 
nine railroads had operating deficits in August. Of these, eight 
were in the Southern, thirteen in the Western, and _twenty- 
eight in the Eastern Districts. For the same month the 
net operating income of the Eastern District dropped from 
$35,402,300 to $14,929,990. In the Western District the drop 
was from $50,335,500 to $33,031,700. 

For the three months of July, August and September the 
Class I roads had a falling off in net operating revenue of $48,- 
500,000. This decrease is particularly significant when we 
take into consideration the fact that beginning the early summer 
months there had set in an increased demand for railroad service 
—a demand comparable in scope only to the peak of prosperity 
in 1920. 

Expenses continued to mount with the strike’s effectiveness. 
In August the expenses increased by $24,000,000 over June, the 
last month before the strike. September showed an increase of 
$45,000,000 — largely for “transportation” and “maintenance 
of equipment.” Though this month showed, according to the 
figures submitted by the railroads themselves to the Interstate 
Commerce Commission, a decrease of about 23 per cent. in the 
number of skilled mechanics employed, yet there was an in- 
crease of over 17 per cent. in the expenses. And this also 
despite the fact that the wages of the skilled shop workers had 
been cut from 72 to 67 cents an hour. 

For the skilled union men the Railroad Labor Board or- 
dered the abolition of the overtime scales. When it came to 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE = 165 


paying overtime rates to strikebreakers the Board did not in- 
terfere in the least. In June the railroad corporations paid 
$747,000 in straight and $952,000 in punitive overtime. In 
July, the straight rose to $828,000 and the punitive jumped to 
$5,183,000. August saw the straight overtime climb to $1,323.- 
000 and the punitive mount to $12,000,000. The pace was main- 
tained in September when the regular overtime pay rose to 
$1,617,000 and the time and a half, double time expense leaped 
to $15,466,000. Besides, there was also a bonus bill of $3,700,- 
000 paid to the “loyal” workers. Within this three month pe- 
riod the companies spent $29,000,000 more for fewer repairs 
than in times of peace for a similar period, as shown by Mr. 


Evans Clark of the Labor Bureau: 


“The increase in transportation costs came from 
the rapid increase in delays and accidents on the roads 
resulting in overtime payments to train crews, in ‘pro- 
tecting’ the strikebreaking crews, and other such items. 
The normal expense for guarding railroad property is 
about $1,000,000 a month which goes in wages to pri- 
vate policemen. In July the Class I Roads spent $6,- 
000,000 in wages to special officers. In August they 
spent $7,500,000 and in September $5,700,000. The 
average for the three months was 540 per cent. more 
than the normal amount. The New York Central alone 
spent $551,000 for special officers in August while the 
strike was on and only $97,000 in October when it had 
settled with the men. . .”?9) 


It is especially instructive for workingmen to note the 
type of people to whom the railroad corporations and the Gov- 
ernment, both pretectors of the public, entrusted the railroads. 
Anent this condition, Mr. Mingos, recently declared, after mak- 
ing a thorough country-wide investigation for The New York 
Times. 


29) The Nation, December 27, 1922, page 715. 


166 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


ie The down-and-outers and the profession- 


ally unemployed are now working for the railroads. 
When the call went out for strikebreakers these classes 
came a-running. Most of them came from the city 
parks and the alleys, all sorts of degrees of the un- 
skilled. 


“Unskilled in honest labor, that is; for there are 
instances too numerous to mention where train load 
after train load of recruits have been dumped into a 
railroad town to have the company officials discover 
that they harbored and paid a precious crew of thugs, 
sunmen, and sharks, second-story men and ex-boot- 
leggers. 


“Many of them were just resting up after a stretch 
in prison or avoiding contact with the metropolitan po- 
lice. With them came the honest, good-for-nothing 
bum. It was his golden opportunity. Easy money, 
everything found and protection. Above all, protec- 
tion was what his gentle soul most craved—three meals 
a day, a place to sleep, and protection. For his arch- 
enemy, work, he had no fear. Who ever heard tell of 
a strikebreaker working? 


“The bum who a year ago panhandled his way 
from park to park and into one jag after another, at 
the expense of the city’s gullibles, has for the last 
several months been a personage. Sought after and 
welcomed by all the rival strikebreaking organiza- 
tions, fly-by-night detective agencies, fake industrial 
bureaus and upstart employment headquarters, he has 
been depended upon to help break the strike and keep it 
broken. 


“Few questions if any are asked by the strikebreak- 
ing agencies, which receive as a rule $25 for each man 
furnished the road. 


“The road in turn must provide first class transpor- 
tation for the worker and guarantee that he will be re- 
turned to base in equal luxury. If he travels at night, 
Pullman accommodations are included in the bill. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE — 167 


Thousands have been shipped out of New York in the 

past few months. 

“Thousands have returned to town a few weeks 
later with more money than they ever saw before. They 
spend it here and sign up for some other job in another 
shop. Thruout the length and breadth of the land 
the hoboes and the tough guys are enjoying the hospi- 
tality of the railroads. 

“Instead of dodging fly cops, they are under their 
protection. East and West, the ancient habit of gun- 
toting has been revived, virtually all the new employees 
carrying weapons.”?°) 

And these are the “men” the Government called “loyal” 
workers. These are the ones whom the Government guaranteed 
the right to work by jailing the strikers and sending the soldiers 
against them. These are the ones whom the Government afforded 
protection by issuing scores of injunctions against the strikers 
and beating and jailing them. 

Why were the railroads so ready and anxious to pay the 
strikebreakers so well? Why was the Government so generous 
in spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect these 
strikebreakers? Why did Harding even pause at taking a va- 
cation in order to have sufficient time in which to prepare strike- 
breaking messages on behalf of these loyalists? There is but one 
answer to all of these questions. 


The Government Rallies to the Open Shop Drive 


The answer is this. The Government, acting as the defender 
of the interests of the capitalist class, was in thorough agreement 
with the plan of the railroad capitalists to destroy the railway 
unions. What mattered cost? What mattered injunctions? 
What mattered jail sentences for workers? What mattered 
the widespread use of the army to shoot down workers? The 


30) The New York Times, November 19, 1922. 


168 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Open Shop Crusade had called. Inspired by the holy cause of 
the Dollar, the Government threw in all of its financial, military 
and judicial powers against the workers. In no other strike 
before, had the Government acted so thoroughly as a strike- 
breaking agency. 

On July 3 the Railroad Board adopted a resolution out- 
lawing the unions. This resolution declared: 


“Whereas, in the future submission of disputes 
involving rules, wages and grievances of said classes 
of employees of the carriers it will be desirable, if not 
a practical necessity for the employees of each class on 
each carrier to form some sort of an association or or- 
ganization to function in the representation of said em- 
ployees before the Railroad Board in order that the 
effectiveness of the Transportation Act may be main- 
tained. 

“Be it further resolved that. . . it must likewise be 
conceded that the men who remain in the service and 
those who enter it anew are within their right in accept- 
ing such employment—that they are not strikebreak- 
ers—seeking to impose the arbitrary will of an em- 
ployer on employees, that they have the moral as well 
as the legal right to engage in such service of the Ameri- 
can public to avoid interruption of indispensable rail- 
road transportation and that they are entitled to the pro- 
tection of every department and branch of the Govern- 
ment—State and national. 


“By order of the 
“United States Railroad Labor Board, 


“BEN W. HOOPER, Chairman.” 


This strikebreaking resolution was the key to the Govern- 
ment’s union-smashing policy thruout the whole strike. It also 
laid the basis for the subsequent demand made upon the workers 
for unconditional surrender by the Railroad capitalists when 
the question of Seniority came up. The Government gave the 
capitalists the cue and they took it. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE = 169 


On July 7 Mr. Hooper followed this up with another thrust 
at the workers: 


“The Shop crafts have been fairly heard before the 
Labor Board. They have appealed from the sober con- 
servative judgment of this Board to the strike, with all 
its inevitable un-American subversion of law and order. 

“For the Labor Board to yield to measures of this 
kind would be an outrage upon public decency and 
would hasten the enthronement of anarchy in this coun- 
ry. 


Within ten days after the strike was declared troops were 
mobilized in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Kansas, Mis- 
souri. Before the strike was one month old two companies of 
anti-aircraft field artillery were rushed to Concord, New Hamp- 
shire. At the request of James H. Hustis, President of the Bos- 
ton and Maine Railroad, Governor Cox of Massachusetts mo- 
bilized the newly organized State Constabulary, cancelled the 
leaves of absence in the first corps of the National Guard and 
issued a proclamation against the workers. It follows in part: 


“The Commonwealth of Massachusetts cherishes 
its good name and is ready now to use every force at its 
command, whether civil or military, to protect the ave- 
nues of transportation, to prevent intimidation, to sup- 
press violence and to maintain the public safety.” 


All of this military fanfare was caused by a supposed wave 
of violence on the part of the workers. As a matter of fact, 
however, this strike was peaceful compared with the stormy 
days of 1877 and 1894. Much of the so-called violence was de- 
liberately planned and manufactured by the bosses themselves. 
A good deal was due to the use of gunmen. No less was born in 
the heads of the loyal and energetic editors of the metropolitan 
press and the Government officials. Said the Labor Journal of 
San Bernardino County, California: 


. 


| 170 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“At the beginning of the bombing, our committee 
asked to be permitted to assist in uncovering the per- 
petrators and were most anxious to apprehend those 
guilty. Their offer was contemptuously refused and 
strikers were blamed, and every attempt was made to 
fasten guilt upon them.. 


“A pistol duel was fought between U. S. marshals 
and Santa Fe Guards, in which fourteen shots were 
fired. Newspapers and peace officers laid the blame 
to the strikers. Investigation by the strikers’ commit- 
tee proved that same was an assault with deadly weapon 
with an attempt to commit murder, all within the stock- 
ade. One group of peace officers was close by on 
Fourth Street, another group was directed to Fifth and 
Le Streets, away from the scene of the shooting, by an 
emissary from the inside. This positive proof was 
furnished to both local and Federal peace officers by 
the strike committee, and begged for an investigation 
that would clear up the whole situation, and unearth 
the damnable conspiracy to discredit the strikers. We 
firmly believe that an investigation at that time would 
reveal the murderer of Burton, a Santa Fe guard, found 
dead in the switch yards. 


“Tater, one of the U. S. marshals was observed 
burying a bomb on Santa Fe property, and the Sheriff 
was called and dug up the bomb. He turned it over 
to the marshals and the affair was dropped. 

“Men were seen to throw a number of bombs or 
grenades from a car driven along Sixth Street. Off- 
cial investigation, as soon as reported, that the bombs 
came from a marshal’s car, was apparently dropped, 
but the newspapers attributed the offense to the strik- 
ers.””31) 


But the Government was out to break the strike and it re- 
cognized no bounds to its efforts in behalf of the railway cor- 


31) The Labor Journal, San Bernardino County, migra October 
20, 1922. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE © 171 


porations. Before Daugherty issued his injunction, the local 
and District courts had already granted eighty-nine injunctions 
against striking workers thruout the country. The lie to the 
excuse for these strikebreaking activities on the part of the Gov- 
ernment was given by the monstrous Daugherty injunction. His 
own pet friend, Judge Wilkerson, who had been appointed at the 
request of Daugherty himself only a short while before he 
granted the labor-crushing ukase, was compelled to throw out 
almost three hundred affidavits submitted by the Government 
against the workers and charging them with violence. 

The gigantic strikebreaking activities of the Government in 
the struggle of the railway workers against the capitalists is 
seen in the following press despatch: 


“GOVERNMENT’S STRIKE BILL 


“ACTIVITIES IN RatL WaLKouT Cost 
WaAsHINGTON $1,250,000. 


“Washington, Nov. 14.—Activities of the Govern- 
ment in the railway shopmen’s strike of last summer 
cost upward of $1,250,000 according to an estimate 
reached today by actuaries of the Department of Jus- 
tice. 

“The major portion of the expense was represented 
by the salaries and expenses of special deputy marshals, 
of whom 6000 were appointed during the course of the 


strike. 

“Applications from State and Civic organizations 
for additional appointments in this category, if granted, 
would have sent the total to 40,000, an official of the 
Department said today.’ 


Then came the last nail driven into the coffin of the strikers 
by the Government—the sweeping, drastic Daugherty injunction 
of September Ist. The strikers were forbidden to call those 


32) New York Times, November 15, 1922. 


172 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


who robbed them of their jobs “strikebreakers.” The order not 
only completely shut up the workers and prevented them from 
making any comment as to the strike, it not only prevented the 
leaders from issuing any orders by word of mouth or pen to the 
workers, but it also completely tied up all union funds. In mak- 
ing his plea for the injunction, Daugherty ripped the mask of 
hypocrisy from the face of the Government. He openly and 
frankly announced: 


“So long and to the extent that I can speak for the 
Government of the United States, I will use the power 
of the Government within my control to prevent the la- 
bor unions of the country from destroying the Open 
Shop... 
“‘There comes a time in the history of all nations 
when the people must be advised whether they have a 
Government or not.” 


And Daugherty surely did advise the people, for in Judge 
Wilkerson’s District alone 107 workers were arrested for al- 
leged violations of his crushing order. The Attorney General’s 
advice went on: 


“No union or combination of unions can, under 
the law, dictate to the American Union. When the 
unions claim the right to dictate to the Government and 
to dominate the American people and deprive the . . . 
people of the necessities of life, then the Government 
will destroy the unions, for the Government of the 
United States is supreme and must endure.” 


This injunction proved the supremacy of the United States 
Government beyond the shadow of the slightest conceivable 
doubt—the supremacy as the most powerful and ruthless strike- 
breaking agency in operation. 

This offensive against the unions was preceeded by an at- 
tack against the most militant workers. The object of this was 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE — 173 


obvious. An attempt was made to give the strike a “red” color. 
The Government wanted to hide the ugly fact that it is ready to 
and does throw in al] its powers against the workers even when 
they struggle for the most elementary rights. Pursuing this 
policy so well indicated for it by its predecessor the Demo- 
cratic Administration, the Government engineered a raid on the 
offices of the Trade Union Educational League in Chicago. The 
excuse for this attack on the headquarters of this militant cham- 
pion of the workers was a search for evidence as to the cause of 
the wreck in Gary, Indiana; a wreck which was due to the de- 
fective equipment used by the railroad capitalists. 

In quick order there followed a raid on the Communists 
meeting in Michigan. These workers, who have been in the 
front ranks of every struggle against the exploiters and oppres- 
sors and who are proposing that the working class establish its 
own Government to abolish the capitalist tyranny, were espe- 
cially singled out for persecution. Nearly a score were ar- 
rested and held under prohibitive bail. These were closely linked 
up with the railway strike. 


Preparing the Settlements 


On July 11th, President Harding called for “the co-opera- 
tion of all public authorities . . . and all good citizens to 
facilitate” the maintenance of transportation—in effect it was the 
open shop. In reply to this the unions charged that the railroad 
companies themselves were the ones who were violating the law. 
They cited the fact that “92 railroads have violated the Trans- 
portation Act or decisions of the Railroad Labor Board in 104 
cases”; that the wages ordered by the Railroad Labor Board 
were totally insufficient for an American family; that the Rail- 
roads had refused to establish National Adjustment Boards 
despite the fact that the Transportation Act provided for their 
establishment; and finally that the Labor Board “has abolished 


174 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


overtime pay for Sundays and holidays enjoyed for thirty years 
even on unorganized roads.” 

Then the Railroad Labor Board made some useless attempts 
to get peace. On July 31 Harding proposed to DeWitt Cuyler, 
Chairman of the Association of Railway Executives the follow- 
ing: 

“First—Railway managers and workmen are to 
agree to recognize the validity of all decisions of the 
Railroad Board, and to faithfully carry out such de- 
cisions as contemplated by the law. 

“Second—tThe carriers will withdraw all lawsuits 
growing out of the strike, and Railroad Labor Board ~ 
decisions which have been involved in the strike may 
be taken, in the exercise of recognized rights by either 
party, to the Railroad Board for rehearing. 

““Third—All employees now on strike to be returned 
to work and to their former positions with seniority 
and other rights unimpaired. 

““The representatives of the carriers and the repres- 
entatives of the organizations especially agree that there 
will be no discrimination by either party against the 
employees who did or did not strike.” 


The President further said: 


“You are at liberty to present the situation as I 
have outlined it to you, and I hope you will convey to 
the members my deep conviction that the dispute must 
be brought to an early termination. I need hardly add 
that I have reason to believe these terms will be ac- 
cepted by the workers. 

“If there is good reason why the managers cannot 
accept, they will be obligated to open direct negotia- 
tions, or assume full responsibility for the situation.” 


On August 3 the workers formally accepted this offer. In 
the meantime Hoover had been despatched to New York to urge 
the bankers to permit the railway executives to accept this of- 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE 175 


fer. On August 1, 1922, Hoover attended a secret conference of 
bankers at which were present Benjamin Strong, Governor of 
the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Chas. E. Mitchell, Pres- 
ident of the National City Bank; Mortimer L. Schiff of Kuhn, 
Loeb and Company; James E. Alexander, President National 
Bank of Commerce; Edward R. Stettinius, of J. P. Morgan and 
Company; Steward Prosser, President Bankers’ Trust Company, 
and others. Hoover was pleading in vain. The bankers said 
“no, Then came a quick succession of “noes” to the Presi- 
dent’s request. First the railway executives rejected the plan. 
Then Harding himself made a complete right-about-face. He 
did not dare to challenge the bankers—his masters, 

On August 7 the President offered the workers to return to. 
work at once and leave the question of seniority to the Railway 
Labor Board. This the workers flatly rejected. The Execu- 
tives, under the spur of the bankers, were now even more haughty. 
They were bent upon punishing severely their workers who had 
challenged their right to ruthless exploitation. The executives 
insisted that there could be no compromise on the seniority 
issue. They swore by their strikebreakers and said they owed 
it to their loyal workmen to reward them. The real reason for 
this insistence on robbing the strikers of their seniority rights 
was plain to every one. The Executives saw in it an effective 
method of uprooting unionism on the railways. Had the work- 
ers accepted this plan it would have meant unconditional sur- 
render and ignominious defeat—a deathblow to the unions. At 
this point the original strike issues were lost. The struggle 
centered about the right of the railway workers to go back to 
their jobs without loss of the standing won by them through years 
of service. 

The Big Four Attempt Peace 

In the meanwhile the conditions of equipment had grown 

intolerable and members of the Big Four were becoming very 


176 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


restless. Hundreds quit. They refused to work under these 
dangerous conditions and under the guns of thugs and soldiers. 
The Brotherhood leaders also felt that a loss of the shopmen’s 
strike would cripple their case before the Railroad Labor Board. 
But the greatest fear entertained by these leaders was that they 
would lose control of the rank and file of their unions. The 
workers in these unions were developing an active sympathy for 
the strikers; a sympathy which was continually intensified by 
the outrages heaped upon them by the soldiers and gunmen. 


These conditions forced the Grand Chiefs of the Big Four 
to attempt a settlement. In the latter part of August, Sheppard 
of the Railway Conductors, Lee of the Trainmen, Cashen of the 
Switchmen, Robertson of the Firemen, and Stone of the Engineers 
had a series of Conferences with the Railway Executives in Wash- 
ington. These fizzled out as all the other attempts did. The 
capitalists knew that these Chiefs would go no further than talk- 
ing in all their threats: 


But in the midst of the Daugherty proceedings, a settlement 
was reached which has since been adopted on roads employing 
about half of the 400,000 strikers who went out at the first call. 
On September 13th, the Chairmen of the Ninety Federation 
Systems ratified the Jewell-Warfield Agreement as a basis of re- 
turning to work on the individual systems. 


This agreement provides for the setting up of a commission 
consisting of union men and railway magnates to settle all dis- 
putes. The Railroad Labor Board is thus totally disregarded. 
The strikebreakers are permitted to continue on their jobs. Se- 
niority is to be maintained only amongst the strikers themselves. 
The wages ordered by the Railroad Labor Board remain. By 
November this agreement had been accepted only by about one- 
third of the class I carriers. There were then still close to 
200,000 workers on strike. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP GRAFTS FALL IN LINE 177 


Results of the Strike 


In the struggle of the railway shop crafts the striking work- 
ers displayed the same magnificent solidarity that their brothers 
in the mines and textile mills manifested. But in this strike like 
in the other two the workers were faced with almost the same 
obstacles. First of all, they had to reckon with a most reac- 
tionary leadership. Secondly, they were organized along the 
archaic lines of craft unionism. In the railway strike this crip- 
pled organization structure proved completely hopeless against 
the powerfully centralized machine of the capitalists. Finally, 
because of the strategic importance of the railway industry to 
the capitalists and because of this very powerful financial ma- 
chine running them the Government was most ruthless in its 
strikebreaking activities in this struggle. The whole situation 
was thoroughly analyzed by Wm. Z. Foster as follows: 


“Never in the history of American railroading was 
there such a splendid spirit of solidarity developed, 
never such a pure realization of the welfare of all 
railroad workers, skilled and unskilled, is bound up to- 
gether. The stage was all set for the most tremendous 
strike in history, for a movement that would have been 
gloriously victorious, and that would have dealt an 
heavy blow at the very foundations of capitalism. But 
the leaders of the nine non-striking unions ruined it. 
They betrayed their members into the hands of the 
companies. They compromised the whole fight. They 
robbed the workers of victory. They are traitors to 
the working class.’’?) 


Mr. McMenimen, a Labor member of the Railway Labor 
Board, was especially active in checking the spread of the strike. 
It was this “representative” of the workers who moved that the 
Maintenance of Way men be granted a new hearing by the Rail- 


33) Wm. Z. Foster, in the “Labor Herald,” October 1922, page 7. 


178 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


way Labor Board. This was sufficient excuse for Mr. Grable to 
prevent the maintenance of way workers from striking, though 
they had been the worst sufferers from the wage cuts. Recently 
these poorest paid workers were denied the right to a living 
wage but were granted a two-cent an hour increase as a reward 
for not striking. Had this Union struck, the chances of victory 
would have been enhanced tremendously. By itself, however, 
consisting as it does of “unskilled, undisciplined, and unstrategi- 
cally situated workers,” this Union does not stand a chance 
against the railway corporations. 


The conduct of Fitzgerald leading the Railway Clerks is 
no less despicable. His Union is not situated any better than 
the Maintenance of Way Men are. Despite the fact that it re- 
ceived a painful wage slash, the Union did not join the strike. It ° 
also threw away its chance. The only leader in the whole rail- 
way industry who showed some appreciation of the struggle 
was Stone of the Engineers. 


But the worst treason was in the conduct of Grand Duke 
Lee of the Trainmen. When the members of his union went 
out on the Chicago and Alton he ordered them back on pain of 
expulsion. Because of the revolt of the rank and file of the 
trainmen against the brutality of the gunmen on the Atchison, 
Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway the Grand Chief Lee removed 
from office one general chairman, three local chairmen, and 
eight officers of subordinate lodges. 


On October 10th he crowned his infamy with the following 
declaration: 


“This whole business, with all railroad labor unions 
on one side and all! railroads on the other, with the Rail- 
road Labor Board in between, got too big for any one 
man or a few men to handle. It was loaded with dyna- 
mite for the country as well as for ourselves and the 
executives. No sane Government would permit any 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE 179 


faction or class to paralyze the transportation business 
of the country and thereby punish the innocent, who are 
always in the majority. The only way out was to se- 
parate.”**) (Our Italics). 


This means the dissolution of the Big Four. Wall Street 
was quick to applaud this treason. Commenting on this state- 
ment, the November 1922 Bulletin of the National City Bank 
said: 

“The public is under the strongest obligation to see 

that men in the essential industries who waive the right 

to strike shall receive fair and liberal treatment, and it 

would be an ideal settlement of the matter to have the 

railroad men voluntarily accept that assurance.’*>) 


And the Wall Sireet Journal joined in the applause. 


“Tt is no paradox to say that their inability to stand 
shoulder to shoulder thruout the strike was the most 
fortunate thing that could have happened, first for the 
country at large and eventually for the investors in rail- 
roads,”*°) woh) BLE 
In the struggle only seven of the sixteen railway unions 

struck. When compared with the solidarity of the capitalists 
the collapse of craft unionism is appalling. Against this di- 
vided front of the workers the capitalists on the railway pres- 
ented a mighty compactness of organization unrivalled by the. 
employers in any other industry. A small group of New York 
bankers control the whole transportation system of the country. 
Thru interlocking directorates these banks are the owners of the 
railways, of coal, of the railroad supply companies, of steel, 
and scores of other industries. This group establishes the po- 
licies for the railway companies on a national scale. The 


34) New York Times, October 11, 1922. 
35) National City Bank Bulletin, November 1922, page 6. 
36) Wall Street Journal, October 17, 1922. 


180 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Morgan interests dominate this group of financial lords who 
number twenty-five. How these capitalists have played havoc 
with the unions is magnificently described by Wm. Z. Foster in 
the following: 


“The companies have played the various organiza- 
tions against each other just as they have seen fit, forc- 
ing some into the strike and keeping others at work 
scabbing, exactly as they desired . . . The shopmen’s 
strike, evidencing as it did the deplorable lack of so- 
lidarity between the railroad trades, is an unanswer- 
able argument for industrial unionism thru amalgama- 
tion.””8”) 


This is one of the most important lessons of the railway 
strike. It is a lesson of inestimable importance to the workers 
of every industry, to the whole working class. It is the lack 
of effective organization in the other industries also that makes 
it much easier for the capitalists to recruit huge strikebreaking 
armies. 


Finally the Government has completely exposed itself as a 
strikebreaking agency in this strike. In the struggle of the rail- 
waymen, the press, the army, the courts, the legislative and exe- 
cutive departments of the Government, Federal, State and local, 
were at the disposal of the employers. The railway strike brings 
home to the American working class—that the Government is an 
instrument in the hands of the capitalist class. The role of this 
Government in the textile, mine, and railroad strikes completely 
convicts our “democracy” of being a capitalist dictatorshrip, a 
Government of the employing ae by the employing class, and 
for the employing class. 


The capitalist knew they could count on their Government. 
When the danger of a strike first manifested itself, the employ- 


37) Wm. Z. Foster, in the “Labor Herald,” October 1922, page 6. 


THE RAILWAY SHOP CRAFTS FALL IN LINE — 181 


ers openly stated that a railway strike would mean a challenge 
to their Government. The United Business Service Bulletin de- 
clared: 


“If the railway unions elect to strike it will be ne- 
cessary to meet and answer the question as to the ulti- 
mate hands in which reposes the real Government of 
the United States. For the Railway Labor Board to 
weaken or to compromise is to yield the power of gov- 
ernment in an essential matter to a Railway Soviet.’®) 


Though the workers did not at first see the political nature 
of their struggle so clearly, thousands‘of them learned it after- 
wards. To the railway workers this strike proved a school- 
master—a very stern schoolmaster. It was a painful lesson to 
learn but it was absolutely necessary and well worth while learn- 
ing. This has been forcefully pointed out in the following from 
the investigation of Collier’s magazine: 


“In the past nine weeks the most disturbing thing 
has been the spirit of such statements as these: ‘Seems 
like they ain’t no government for us working class 
people,’ or, ‘It started with me the day my father 
wheeled all our household stuff in a couple of baby car- 
riages out of a mine town up the hills into the snow; 
evicted we was then. Same now. I thought us work- 
ing class had got by all that’. 


“This belief in working class persecution is the most 
outstanding and serious result of the labor wars of 1922. 
In some degree it always follows industrial conflict, but 
in no other strike of recent times have the workers felt 
that the railway management and the public hit them 
unfairly with the fist of the non-partisan courts. The 
so-called Daugherty injunction has done more than 
anything else in a generation to arouse in the minds of 
hundreds of thousands of workers a growing doubt as 


38) United Business Service Bulletin, June 10, 1922. 


182 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


to whether our Government can be trusted to play 
Pats cone 


The Government was bent upon teaching the whole working 
class a lesson. The shopmen were stunned by the brutal, pow- 
erful blows showered upon by them from all directions by the 
Government. The doubts grew with every terrific blow. For 
hundreds of thousands of workers the doubts grew and grew until 
they were dispelled. 

If the workers of America are ever to win freedom from 
this tyranny of their exploiters they must prepare to win com- 
plete political power and must turn their unions into fighting 
organizations. Only thru a thoroughgoing housecleaning of 
the reactionaries in the union administrations and the declara- 
tion of independence from the employers’ political parties can 
these ends be achieved. These are the immediate tasks confront- 
ing the American workingmen. It is these tasks that they must 
meet and meet soon. 





39) Whiting Williams in Collier's Magazine, November 18, 1922, 
page 28. 


CHAPTER VII. 
THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 


“I have got 25,000 men working for me in a little 
foundry back east. I’d like to see any union labor 
leader start something among them. Why, when the 
railroad strike was starting, a bunch of labor delegates 
came around to the plant. In twenty minutes I had 
every damned one of them in jail. I was told I had no 
right to put them in jail. I said: ‘But they are in jail, 
aren't they? Now go and get them out.’ You've got to 
act quick when you are facing a crisis.” —From address 
by Samuel M. Vauclain, President of the Baldwin Loco- 
motive Works, Philadelphia, before New Orleans Asso- 
ciation of Commerce, April 12, 1923. (Our Italics). 


“The administration of American justice is not 
impartial, the rich and the poor do not stand on an 
equality before the law, the traditional method of 
providing justice has operated to close the doors of the 
courts to the poor, and has caused a gross denial of 
justice in all parts of the country to millions of per- 
sons.” 


The Role of the Courts in the Class Conflict 
Wie the Constitution was adopted there was set up a 


system of Federal courts parallel to the State courts. Our 
“Fathers” were building a highly centralized State and the ex- 
istence of this judicial parallelism was a means to this end. 


1) Justice and the Poor, Page 8, By Reginald Heber Smith, The 
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Bulletin No. 13. 


183 


184 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Then, the problem for the ruling class was to limit the powers 
of the individual State, to check separatism, and to prevent any 
one State or group of States from dominating all others. The Fed- 
eral Courts were built to help achieve this end. With the develop- 
ment of large-scale industry and the rise of a powerful ruling 
capitalist class, the question of State rights died as a political 
issue. The very economic conditions themselves gave rise to a 
centralized national State—the present Government of the United 
States. 

Today, the Federal courts especially are of growing im- 
portance in the class conflict. Their inherent characteristics— 
the appointed judiciary—and the lifetime period of service— 
make them far more immune from popular influence than the 
State Courts are. In the latter courts the judges are elected by 
popular vote and the duration of their term is limited. 

The prevailing system of law expresses the status of class 
relationships, the balance of class powers at a definite historical 
moment. The whole system of law, at any given period, is an 
outgrowth of the economic conditions prevailing at that par- 
ticular moment. But, the system of law is not always com- 
pletely adjusted to the needs of the ruling class; the enactment 
of law does not always keep pace with the changing conditions 
and the new demands of the capitalists resulting therefrom. 

In the class war, like in any other war, suddenness of 
attack and counter-attack is an indispensable asset to the belli- 
gerents. In this respect, in the dealing of sudden blows to the 
workers and in effectively resisting any sudden attack, the courts 
render the employing class the greatest service. As the class 
conflict is intensified and broadened, as the workers offer a 
stronger and stronger resistance to their enemy; as they show 
signs of developing a power of offensive, the courts, State as 
well as Federal, under the leadership of the Supreme Court, 
more and more tend to meet the needs of the employers as they 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 185 


arise. In cases where no law has as yet been enacted the courts 
order or forbid; and in cases where a particular law may seem 
to have outgrown its usefulness and being so unsuited to the 
new conditions as to become a menace to the interests of the 
employing class, the courts actually, though not formally, legis- 
late through the judicial opinion. 


On the unlimited power of the courts hinges the whole 
American Governmental system—the power of oppression in the 
hands of the employing class. This has been clearly pointed out 
by the reactionary Senator Shields from Tennessee: 


“IT do not believe that any branch of our Gov- 
ernment shall fail, but to the judiciary, more than to 
anything else, must we look for the preservation and 
perpetuation of our Government. A wise and courageous 
judiciary, resting on the confidence of the people, will 
save it from disintegration, revolution and destruc- 
tion,””) 


The Courts Serve the Rich 
A. PROPERTY INTERESTS ARE PARAMOUNT 


The American Government is formally committed to “the 
protection of life, liberty and property.” Today, however, he 
who has no property has little life and liberty that can be 
protected. The propertyless class, the workers, have as little 
life as their meagre wages can buy and as much freedom as 
they can wring from their oppressors—the employing class. 


Consequently, in fulfilling this duty, the American courts 
are mostly animated by a desire to protect property—and the 
life and liberty of those who have property. In the code of 
American justice, Property comes first. Property is paramount. 


2) Senator John K. Shields, Tennessee, Cong. Rec. April 3, 1922, 
Page 5354. 


186 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


In 1918 Congress enacted a minimum wage law for the work- 
ing women in the District of Columbia. The employing class 
soon turned its heavy guns on it. They immediately challenged 
the constitutionality of the measure on the plea that the law is 
in violation of property rights. The rights of life and liberty 
of the working women did not matter one bit. The supremacy 
of Property rights was formally acknowledged in a decision 
on this law rendered by the Court of Appeals of the District 
of Columbia on November 6, 1922. Said the Court: 


“Not that any amount of property is more valu- 
able than the life or liberty of the citizen, but the his- 
tory of civilization proves that when the citizen is de- 
prived of the free use and enjoyment of his property, 
anarchy and revolution follow, and life and liberty 
are without protection.” 


In this opinion delivered by Justice Van Orsdel the court 
declares that the right of the capitalists to enhance their property 
is inviolable, that the right of the workers to the “pursuit of 
life, liberty, and happiness”, is nothing but a hollow mockery, 
and that all other “rights” are*only secondary to the right of 
the employer ruthlessly to exploit his workers. 


B. THE EMPLOYERS PICK THEIR JUDGES 


If it should happen that a particular court does not properly 
discern the urgency of meeting some immediate employing class 
interests, the capitalists simply move to another court. They 
move into more reliable territory. The following case is illus- 
trative of this condition. 


In March, 1922, the workers on the Western Maryland Rail- 
way Company rose in revolt against the vicious cost-plus con- 
tract entered into by the corporation with a dummy agent. Im- 
mediately the railroad barons hit upon the idea of wearing out 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 187 


the workers through litigation. They sought injunctions restrain- 
ing the workers from picketing, arguing with strikebreakers or 
trespassing. They could not, however, convince Federal Judge 
Rose of Maryland of the necessity for such injunctions. He de- 
nied the plea of the corporation. 

Immediately the President of the Railway Company, Mr. 
Byers, applied to Judge William E. Baker, of the United States 
Court for the Northern District of West Virginia. This Judge 
rendered. service to the railway capitalists and rendered it with 
an overflow measure. Judge*Baker issued an injunction iden- 
tical to the one denied the capitalists in Maryland. He went 
Mr. Byers one better. His temporary restraining order was for 
“all citizens of West Virginia” as well as the shop crafts. 


C. PROTECT GIANT ROBBERIES 


In 1916 the grain gambling capitalists robbed the farmers 
of North Dakota of almost $100,000,000 by undergrading wheat. 
The exploiters graded this harvest at Minneapolis as “chicken 
feed” and paid the farmers $1 a bushel. On the market this 
grade of wheat was actually selling at $2 a bushel. This brought 
on the revolt of the Non-Partisan League and in 1919 North 
Dakota enacted a Grading Law to prohibit such monumental 
frauds. The capitalists at once challenged this law. In March 
1922, the United States Supreme Court declared this law un- 
constitutional by a vote of 6 to 3. Judge Day, in the majority 
opinion, declared that the law interfered with interstate com- 
merce and that the State had no right to enact such a measure 
interfering with legitimate business. 

Justice Brandeis in the dissenting opinion exposed this fraud. 


He said: 


“In 1919 the legislature of North Dakota conclud- 
ed that its farmers were being systematically defrauded 
in purchases of their grain made within the State. The 


188 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


buyers were largely local mills, of which there are 
160, the local elevators, of which there are 2,200. The 
fraud was perpetrated, in part, by underweighing and 
undergrading in the unofficial inspection of the grain 
made locally by or on behalf of the purchasers. In part, 
the fraud was perpetrated by means of unconscionable 
bargains made locally, through which valuable dockage 
was obtained without any payment therefor or by which 
the grain itself was bought at less than its fair value.” 


The fraud in the argument of interfering with interstate com- 
merce was soon further unmasked. Senator Capper and Repre- 
sentative Tincher of the “Farm Bloc” secured the passage of 
a law putting grain exchanges under the control of the Secretary 
of Agriculture. The amount of grain to be handled was limited. 
by this act so as to prevent the same lot being sold over and 
over again in the market, and co-operative associations were to 
be admitted on a preferential basis. This law was challenged 
by the Chicago Board of Trade. As usual, the Constitution was 
invoked. Profits were in danger. In May 1922, the Supreme 
Court found this Federal law unconstitutional. Chief Justice 
Taft declared that trading in grain is not an act of interstate 
commerce and that Congress has no right to regulate “future” 
trading. Thus, when an attempt was made to check the capitalist 
robberies by North Dakota, the Supreme Court held that grain 
entered interstate commerce as soon as it was placed in a wagon 
going to market, and that therefore, the State Legislature did 
not have the power to control it. Later, when the attempt 1 
check the capitalist robberies came from a Federal source the 
Supreme Court decided that trading in grain, when it takes on 
the form of “wildcatting” on the exchange, is not an act of 
interstate commerce. In both cases there was but one issue— 
the right of the capitalists to exploit the working farmers. In 
both cases the Supreme Court upheld this right, though it had 
to make a complete right about face to do so. This is the highly 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 189 


profitable justice to which the American working and farming 
masses are being treated. 


D. COURTS PREVENT INVESTIGATION OF PROFITS 


Occasionally the fabulous profits of the capitalists become 
public and a demand for lower prices follows. To meet this 
demand by hushing it, the Government proceeds to investigate 
the industry in question. In this educational effort the Govern- 
ment is tied up hands and feet by the courts. Recently the 
Federal Trade Commission attempted to investigate the steel 
corporations. The Commission charged that the steel companies 
were in a gigantic combine to maintain high prices and that 
their conduct was to a large extent responsible for the wide- 
spread depression. This investigation was stopped by the Steel 
Trust when it secured an injunction from Justice Bailev, on 
March 10, 1922, in the Federal Court of the District of Columbia. 
It was the same court that had prevented the investigation of 
the coal industry in the Maynard case. The Steel Trust howled 
that it could not afford to have its trade “secrets” exposed. The 
Court joined this chorus. And the workers had to go on giving 
the same swollen profits to the poor steel corporation! 


E. THE COURTS PROTECT THE WEALTHY CRIMINALS 


Justice is reputed to be blind. This is true only in so far 
as the meting out of punishment for crimes committed by cap- 
italists is concerned. But blind as this justice is, the judges 
usually see to it that capitalist offenders should go unpunished, 
as the New York State Lockwood Housing Committee pointed 
out: 


“Judges, both in the State and Federal Courts, have 
almost consistently treated this class of offenders, with 
tender consideration. In one case in the State court, 
in which the manufacturers of brick and dealers in 


190 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


building materials were proved guilty of most overt 
acts, constituting willful frauds upon the public, the 
court allowed all the defendants to escape with fines. 

“The court in that case expounded the extraordin- 
ary view that because of the business and social station 
of these men the humiliation of being compelled to 
plead ‘guilty’ to a crime and the imposition of com- 
paratively small fines upon them was a sufficient pun- 
ishment. The same point of view seems to prevail with 
the Federal Judges. There is no hope of compelling 
obedience to these laws or of enforcing them so long as 
the courts adopt this attitude.’) (Our Italics). 


The social position of the capitalist—that is his unimpaired 
right to continue exploiting the workers—must be maintained 
at all costs. Anent this condition, Samuel Untermyer has thus 


said: 


“The action of the court today in refusing to im- 
pose prison sentences upon the conviction of Hetterick 
as a second offender and of his co-conspirator Wither- 
spoon—a man of great wealth who is the President of 
Baker, Smith and Company, the greatest manufacturing 
concern in its line in the United States, that does a busi- 
ness of many millions annually throughout the country 
—coming as it does as the culmination of a long list 
of like occurrences in the State and Federal courts, 
has destroyed all hope of enforcing these laws as crim- 
inal statutes. 

“Here was a case that developed the most vicious 
and corrupt features of coercion, fraud and moral tur- 
pitude, in addition to violations of the anti-trust laws, 
that could well be convicted. The head of the greatest 
manufacturing concern of its kind deliberately con- 

| spired with Hetterick to force unwilling competitors 
into an illegal combination to destroy competition and 


3) From the Report of the New York State Legislature Lockwood 
Housing Committee, 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 191 


to hold the public by the throat, using union labor 
leaders as pawns in their game by threatening to ruin 
employers by withholding labor from them unless they 
became parties to this unholy alliance. 

“Not even our schoolhouses then in the process 
of erection were immune from the matched bids and 
other fraudulent practices that constituted the machin- 
ery through which these swindles were perpetrated. A 
sneak thief’s business is a gentlemanly occupation by 
comparison with what these buccaneers did. 

“The trouble has been and is that after months of 
effort in each of these cases and the expenditure of large 
sums of money, and after securing prompt convictions, 
the courts refuse to punish this class of offenders.’ 


When capitalists act in restraint of trade it is not a crime. 
At least, it is not a punishable crime. How can one expect a 
capitalist court to punish a capitalist criminal? The courts are 
part and parcel of the Government which is an organ to protect 
the employers and to crush the workers. 


The Couris Are Against the Workers 


President Benjamin Harrison once said: “The principal 
function of the law is to keep the poor in subjection.” This is 
the policy of our courts. This is the policy pursued by our 
courts with unfailing regularity. 


A. THE COURTS ARE TOO EXPENSIVE FOR THE POOR 


Even if Justice could be secured in the courts, even if the 
judges were not to function as agents of the employing class, 
the workers would find themselves at an extreme disadvantage 
in the American judiciary system. The great cost of litigation 
in the Federal courts is well known. These courts are beyond 


4) From Letter by Samuel Untermyer, Counsel to the Lockwood Com- 
mittee, to New York State Attorney General Newton, April 27, 1922. 


192 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


the reach of the workingman. But the other courts are only 
less bad in this respect, as shown in the following typical case 
cited by the Carnegie Foundation investigation. 


“Hundreds of thousands of men, many of them im- 
migrants, have been unable to collect their wages 
honestly earned. . . 

“Denial of justice is not merely negative in effect; 
it actually encourages fraud and dishonesty. . . Every- 
where it abets the unscrupulous, the crafty, and the 
vicious, in their ceaseless plan for exploiting their less 
intelligent and less fortunate fellows. The system not 
only robs the poor of their only protection but it places 
in the hands of their oppressors the most powerful 
and ruthless weapon ever invented.’») 


“There exist today businesses established, conduct- 
ed, and flourishing on the principle that as against the 
poor the law can be violated with impunity because re- 
dress is beyond their reach. It is this situation which 
allowed such unrestrained abuse of the laws regulating 
the assignment of future wages that a sort of quasi- 
slavery resulted, which brought the loan shark into 
being, and permitted flagrant usury to grow into a 
monstrous thing. 

“Consider, for example, this actual case. A woman 
borrowed ten dollars in 1914, and for two years paid 
interest at 160 per cent. In 1916 a law was enacted 
fixing 36 per cent. as the maximum rate. The lender, 
by a device contrary to the Statute, compelled her to 
continue paying 156 per cent. interest. The law also 
provided that if excess interest were charged, the loan 
would be declared void by a suit in equity. The law 
was on the books. The court house was open, the equity 
court in session with its judge on the bench and its 
officers in attendance. All that was of no avail to her, 
for the law could not bring its redress until five dollars 


5) Justice and the Poor, Bulletin No. 13, Page 9, Carnegie Foundation 
for the Advancement of Teaching, By Reginald Heber Smith. 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 193 


was paid for service of process and entry fee, and ten 
dollars to an attorney to draw, file, and present the 
necessary bill of complaint. Fifteen dollars she did 
not have and, because of her condition, could not earn. 
For her there was no law.”®) 


B. THE COURTS ARE HARSH IN THEIR. TREATMENT 
OF THE POOR 


The judges, thru their very training and associations are 
prejudiced against the workingman. The title judge is similar 
to that of any other title signifying some degree of nobility. 
Once elected judge entitles one to the prefix “Judge” for the rest 
of his life, whether he remains so or not. The American employ- 
ing class holds the courts in great esteem. The judges are taken 
into the highest confidence and company. This has its reflex in 
the attitude of the judges on the bench, as Senator Norris has 
said: 

“I do not believe there is any man who can stick 


his legs under the tables of the idle rich every night 


and be fit the next day to sit in judgment upon those 
who toil.” 


Occasionally, in the heat of the struggle of the workers 
against their employers, the judges give vent to their real feel- 
ing about the workingmen. The following comment from Judge 
Tuttle in the course of his granting an injunction against the 
striking shopmen in Detroit, Michigan, is expressive of the em- 
ploying class point of view entertained by our Judges. | Said 
Judge Tuttle in reference to the striking shopmen: 


“T wish the Government had police that I could 
send in men to patrol the streets of Saginaw and see that 


6) Ibid, Page 10. The case cited is that of Mary Vs. Star 
Finance Co., reported in full in 16 Boston, L. A. R. 12-14, 

7) Senator Norris, Cong. Record, Vol. 62, No. 95, Page 5661, April 6, 
1922. 





194, THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


honest men who want work are not denied the chance 
for the threats of bums who don’t want to.’®) 


This Honorable Judge was so enraged by the challenge of 
the railway workers to the capitalists that he lost control of 
his vocabulary as well as his temper. 

This attitude of hostility to the poor and loyalty to the rich 
is reflected in the difference between the severity of the sentences 
imposed upon the rich and those imposed on the poor. In a letter 
sent by Representative James A. Frear of Wisconsin to Secretary 
of the Treasury Mellon, on November 26, 1922, in protest against 
the Government’s policy of refusing to punish the millionaire tax 
evaders, the Congressman wrote: 


“T may be old-fashioned concerning notions of 
even-handed justice, but I wrote you before in my letter 
of October 29 that Justice Stafford, of Washington, had 
sentenced a boy the day before to 10 years’ hard labor 
for attempting to pick a pocket. In a New York de- 
spatch of November 9, Judge Talley is reported to have 
sentenced Louis Wiley to 15 years’ imprisonment for 
attempting to steal a purse containing 32 cents. Those 
now trying to escape tax penalties on a $437,000,000 
surplus would require many centuries, reaching back 
to the Stone Age, if Talley was keeper of the Treasury 
and a proportionate term penalty was imposed.” 


No one need have fears. Such sentences are not imposed 
on the capitalists. The millionaires have robbed the Govern- 
ment of hundreds of millions of dollars. The Government has 
not only refused to punish them, but many of its most import- 
ant agents have even aided and abetted the thefts. 


Compare the kind treatment accorded the rich criminals for 
interfering with the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, 


8) Quoted in “Labor”, July 29, 1922. 
9) Cong. Record, Vol. 63, No. 8, Page 302, November 28, 1922. 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 195 


as reported by the New York Lockwood Committee, with the 
brutal treatment accorded the workers who attempted to save the 
lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans during the war. 
In the dissenting opinion of the United States Supreme Court 
in the Abrams case, Judge Holmes declared: 


“In this case sentences of twenty years’ imprison- 

ment have been imposed for the publishing of two leaf- 
lets that I believe the defendants had as much right to 
publish, as the Government has, the Constitution of 
the United States now vainly invoked by them. 
I regret that I cannot put into more impressive words 
my belief that in their conviction upon this indictment 
the defendants were deprived of their rights under the 
Constitution of the United States.” 


C. THE COURTS PERMIT THE CAPITALISTS 
TO CRUSH THE WORKERS 


The Pennsylvania Railroad was the leader of the strike- 
breaking Association of Railway Executives. The Pennsylvania 
Railroad was the leader of the anti-union campaign on the rail- 
ways. On July 26, 1921 the Railroad Labor Board handed 
down Decision No. 220 in which it held that the Pennsylvania 
Railroad 


“was not justified in its refusal to let the men vote for 
an organization to represent them. The men had as 
much right to vote for a representative not in the em- 
ploy of the company as the carrier had to select a rep- 
resentative who was not a director or an officer of the 


road,””0) 

_ The Railroad company refused to abide by the decision of 
the Railroad Labor Board ordering a new election. The Penn- 
sylvania secured an injunction from Judge Landis restraining 


10) Bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics No. 303, Use of 
Federal Power in Settlement of Railway Labor Disputes, Page 94, 


196 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


the Labor Board from publishing its decision. Months went 
on before a final decision was reached on this matter. Then 
Federal Judge Page came to the rescue of the Pennsylvania with 
a favorable decision. The case was continued and on July 30, 
1922, Circuit Judges Baker, Alschuler and Evans handed down 
a decision nullifying the Landis injunction. Early in 1923 the 
Supreme Court ruled that the Labor Board had a right to pub- 
lish its decisions but could not enforce them. But such long 
periods of litigation serve as screens behind which the capitalists 
hide their labor-crushing campaigns. In the meanwhile the 
workers pay very dearly for the diligence of the courts in search 
for a “fair” decision. Said Mr. B. M. Jewell of the Railway 
Employees’ Department of the American Federation of Labor. ~ 


“But what court, what Federal tribunal can _ re- 
compense the Pennsylvania men and their families for 
the great hardships which they have had to undergo 
and may have to endure until a final decision is rend- 
ered. They have seen their homes go because they 
could not keep up their payments. They have had to 
abandon other cherished projects because they were 
jobless or shamefully underpaid and, worst of all, their 
children have been deprived of adequate food at the . 
most critical period of their lives. There is no redress 
for such hardships.” 


During the Great Steel Strike of 1919, in the struggle against 
the Standard Steel Car Company, five workers were killed and 
several were wounded at Hammond, Indiana. These strikers were 
unarmed and were marching in a parade. The men who were 
killed and most of those injured were shot in the back by hired 
eunmen. 

There was not even a grand jury investigation of the cold- 
blooded murder of workingmen. Only civil action was brought 


11) “Labor,” July 29, 1922. 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 197 


against the capitalists. But the courts refused to proceed against 
the Standard Steel Car Company on the ground that its guards 
had been sworn in as special policemen and were therefore acting 
under the official orders of the Hammond municipal police. A 
special committee of trade-unionists is still seeking justice. The 
workers have been killed in cold blood. Their capitalist hang- 
men are free. The courts have so decreed it. 


D. THE COURTS ACT AS STRIKEBREAKERS 


Numerous decisions have been recently issued by courts for- 
bidding all strike activities. We will cite only a few of the 
myriad of such cases. 

In the case of Robinson v. The Hotel and Restaurant 
Workers, Local No. 782 the Supreme Court of Idaho enjoined 
the stationing of pickets.12) 

In Mahoning County, Ohio, the Court of Common Pleas 
ruled that the union is to be limited to the following proportion 
of pickets; twelve where there are 50 or more employed, a 
maximum of 6 in cases where there are employed betwen 25 and 
50 workers, and a maximum of 4 pickets in places where less 
than 25 are employed. It ordered all pickets to register their 
names with the employers or contractors in order that the bosses 
might at all times know them.!*) 

In the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals Judge 
White rendered a decision in which he said: 


“I am unable to conceive that ‘picketing’ (properly 
so-called) as applied to strike controversies is ever free 
from intimidation and obstruction, and I therefore think 
it is here properly enjoined under the specific term.”!) 


12) Supreme Court, Idaho, 207, page 132. 

13) Moore-Lamb Construction Co. vs. Amalgamated Sheet Metal Work- 
ers, et al. . 

14) Keuffel and Esser vs. International Association of Machinists, et al. 


198 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


In Louisiana, the City Court of Shreveport decreed that 
workers picketing a store with handbills or banners were gyilty 
of disorderly conduct.) 

In West Virginia the Circuit Court of Ohio County issued 
an order against the displaying of banners, picketing, and em- 
ployment of all means calculated 


“to intimidate plaintiff’s employees, persons with whom 
plaintiff now has contracts or customers or intended 
customers of plaintiff.” 


Again, in some instances the courts have denied the workers 
the right to join a union and punished them for doing so. 
Director of Public Safety McCandless of Pittsburgh ofdered all 
city firemen to resign from the union or give up their jobs. 
Two firemen, Captain William S. Hutchinson and Lieutenant 
Filmore Taylor were dismissed for refusing to give up their 
membership in the Firemen’s Protective Association. They filed 
a bill in equity pleading for reinstatement. Judge Macfarlane 
dismissed their plea. He found that the union in question was 
affliated with the American Federation of Labor, an organiza- 
tion which sometimes resorts to the use of the strike, and said: 


- “Membership of firemen in the Firemen’s Protec- 
tive Association, as constituted, is inimical to the best 
interests of the public and detrimental to the efficiency 
and discipline of the service.”!7) 


And some courts go even further than this. Some courts 
punish the workers for striking against degrading working con. 
ditions and starvation wages. During the mine strike Federal 
Judge Charles D. Orr, in the Federal District Court at Pitts- 


15) State vs. Dehan, et al. 
S 16) Kalbitzer Packing Co. vs. Amalgamated Meat Cutters, Local Union 
o. 7, et al. 
17) New York Times, October 21, 1922, page 2. 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 199 


burgh, refused naturalization papers to workers simply because 
they were struggling against the tyranny of the mine operators. 
This Judge is quoted as saying: “Public sentiment is against 
the strike.” One applicant who passed every test given him 
was told by this Justice, “Go back to work and I will grant you 
papers.”!8) 


Solidarity of the workers is a crime in the eyes of the courts. 
When workers present a solid front in a strike, the strike is 
effective. The profits of the capitalists are then restrained by 
the workers who have stopped producing. In the eyes of the 
courts this is a restraint of trade brought on by the solidarity 
of the workers. The judges then order the workers to drop their 
solidarity on pain of being sent to jail. The profits must con- 
tinue unrestrained. The strike must end and the workers must 
be restrained from effectively protesting against unspeakable 
working conditions and wages. Illustrative of this practice of 
the courts is the following declaration of Judge Wilkerson in 
granting the infamous Daugherty injunction: 


“Defendants assert, as a ground against the grant- 
ing of the relief sought by the complainant, that the 
strike was a defensive measure against a plot of the 
railway companies to destroy the unions. The argu- 
ment seems to be that the defendants are justified in 
inflicting upon the public any injury which it may be 
proper for them to inflict upon their adversaries in this 
conflict. Restraint of trade may not be adopted as a 
weapon in industrial warfare. The court must act upon 
the case now before it and give its aid to the removal 
of the obstructions to commerce which are found to 
exist.”9) (Our italics). 


18) Quoted in “Labor,” April 22, 1922. 
19) Judge Wilkerson in United States vs. Railway Employees’ De- 
partment, et al. 


200 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Thus did Judge Wilkerson turn his court over to the rail- 
way capitalists in their campaign to smash the unions and break 
the strike. Rob a union of its right to strike, under whatever 
pretense you see fit, and you rob it of its right to live. You 
destroy the working class organizations and enslave the workers. 
This is exactly what the court aimed at and got in the last rail- 
way strike. 


The Supreme Court Leads the Attack on the Workers 


The procedure of “judicial review” is an inherent feature 
of the theory and practice of American Government. Endowed 
with this power, our courts have exercised legislative as well as 
judiciary functions. He who has the right to declare a law null 
and void, he who has the right to interpret legislation, legislates 
as much as any legislature does. 

The history of the Supreme Court and its role in the class 
struggle is a history of continuous enmity to the working class 
and unfailing service to the employing class. The nine men on 
the Supreme Court bench are endowed with virtually royal pow- 
ers. The first two Chief Justices of the Supreme Court ruled 
from 1801 to 1864; John Marshall of Virginia; 1801-1835 and 
Roger B. Taney of Maryland, 1836-1864. These Judges ruled 
for a longer period and with a firmer hand than most kings do. 

Many progressives, liberals, near-liberals and Socialists have 
vehemenily protested against the “usurped powers” of the courts 
—particularly the Supreme Court. — In this protest they are 
unjustified by the facts of history. The “Fathers” deliberately 
endowed the courts with the power of judicial review. 
Seventeen of the leading members of the Constituent Assembly 
meeting in Philadelphia in 1787 favored giving the courts power 
to pass upon the Constitutionality of legislation. This power 
was conceded in the early days of the Supreme Court.2° 


20) “The Supreme Court in United States History” by Charles Warren. 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 201 


As early as 1792 the Supreme Court passed upon laws un. 
der the power of determining the constitutionality of legisla- 
tion. In the case of Hylton vs. United States, in 1796, the Su- 
preme Court upheld the constitutionality of a carriage tax en- 
acted by Congress. 


“It is extremely interesting to learn that this was a 
moot case, in which counsel on both sides was paid by 

the Government in order to obtain a decision as to the 

validity of the tax. In fact within two years after the 

Government began, the United States Circuit Courts 

held statutes invalid without arousing State hostility.”?! 

The object of the “Fathers” in granting this power of ju- 
dicial review to the courts was plain. The “Fathers” were build- 
ing a government which was to be as little democratic as it could 
possibly be without arousing the masses to action and effective 
protest against it. The granting of such powers to the judiciary 
was merely another step in this direction. John Marshall, the 
first king of the American judicial oligarchy, was opposed to 
democratic government. His hatred of the masses was evi- 
denced in his two doctrines of Individualism and National Su- 
premacy. 

As early as 1802 the courts were being charged with ex- 
ercising “usurped” powers. This was caused, however, not by 
a belief that the courts were exercising undue powers. ‘This 
wave of protest had its origin in the struggle for power between 
the Federalists and anti-Federalists, a struggle reflecting a con- 
flict of economic interests at stake in the role of the American 
Government in the then-raging Franco-British war. 

Exercising this power granted to it by the “Fathers” the 
Supreme Court in its very first days began to serve the proper- 
tied class as against the non-propertied. 


21) Raymond Leslie Buell, N. Y. Times Current History, Nov. 1922, 
page 223. 


202 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“The Supreme Court actively intervened to protect 
property rights. Under the old Articles of Confedera- 
tion, State Legislatures passed stay laws postponing 
the payment of debts, changed the terms of contracts 
and compelled creditors to accept almost worthless pa- 
per money in payment of debt. One of the most im- 
portant reasons for framing the new Constitution was 
to prevent these encroachments on vested rights and 
these violations of the fundamental rules of morality. 
Section 10 of the first article of the Constitution was 
framed with a view to checking such actions on the part 
of State Legislatures. 

“One of the first cases involving this clause con- 
cerned the ‘Yazoo Land Claims’. In this case the 
Georgia Legislature had been virtually bribed to give 
thousands of acres of public land to private companies. 
A succeeding Legislature nullified these grants on the 
ground they had been obtained by fraud. But the 
Supreme Court held that this repeal act impaired the 
obligation of the contract into which the first 
Legislature had entered. . .22) Fletcher v. Peck, 
6 Cranch, 87). 


The development of the American judiciary system and the 
attacks on its powerful role in the class conflicts of the country 
reflect the development of American capitalism and the rise of 
the present ruling class—the employing class. Prior to the 
Civil War, when there was still an opportunity for the work- 
ers to rise to a higher social status and when the center of 
gravity in the class struggle was in the conflict between the 
petty-propertied man and the ever-growing group of huge-pro- 
pertied interests, the attack on the Supreme Court was largely 
an attack in behalf of State Rights as against a strong National 
Government. After the Civil War, when the advocates of a 
strong National Government were victorious, when “State Right- 


22) Ibid, page 225. 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 203 


ism” died with the change in conditions, when the big capitalists 
were developing rapidly and increasing their power steadily, 
and when the center of gravity in the class conflict shifted po- 
sitively towards the struggle between the workers and the em- 
ployers, the attack on the Supreme Court became an attack on its 
attitude towards the workers, an attack on its stand regarding 
social legislation. 

It was as early as 1802 that the attacks on this bulwark of 
the ruling class reflected the conflict of class interests. In 1808 
there was a proposal to secure the removal of Judges upon the 
joint request of the House and the Senate. In 1824, 1827, 1868 
there were proposals in Congress to limit the power of. the 
Supreme Court in the matter of declaring laws unconstitutional 
by demanding a two-thirds or unanimous vote under these circum- 
stances. Some recommended that the term of office be limited. 


Some Recent Decisions 


From a consideration of some of the recent decisions of the 
Supreme Court it is clear that the Supreme Court is the fountain 
head of American reaction, that it is the heart of the capitalist 
system of oppression as organized in the various local, State, 
and National Governments. 

At the head of the Supreme Court today is a man, William 
H. Taft, who has been repudiated by the American workers in 
the election of 1912. This same Taft is, legally speaking, the 
father of the American injunction, the powerful weapon used 
by the capitalists against workers. 


A. THE DUPLEX CASE 


In the case of the Duplex Printing Press Company vs. Deer- 
ing, et al., the Supreme Court, in its decision rendered in January, 
1921, dealt the workers of America one of the severest blows 


204 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


ever received by them in conflict with their employers. The 
case arose out of a controversy between the International Asso- 
ciation of Machinists and this corporation in Battle Creek, Michi- 
gan. The workers were striving to organize themselves into a 
union but the employers prevented them. Then the International 
Association took steps to compel the company to grant the work- 
ers their right to organize by striking back at the company thru 
the power of its organization in other parts of the country. 
Against these activities the company appealed to the courts. The 
Supreme Court then thus settled the matter against the workers. 


“There is nothing here to justify defendants of the 
organizations they represent, in using either threats or 
persuasion to bring about strikes or a cessation of 
work on the part of employees of complainant’s cus- 
tomers, with the object of compelling such customers 
to withdraw or refrain from commercial relations with 


complainant.” (Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 
et al., 254 U. S. 443). 


This insures the success of the union-smashing campaign of 
the company. The Supreme Court further said: 


“To instigate a sympathetic strike in aid of a 
secondary boycott cannot be deemed peaceful and law- 
ful persuasion.” 


The Court went on 


“It is settled by these decisions that such a restraint 
produced by peaceable persuasion is as much within 
the prohibition as one accomplished by force or threats 
of force; and it is not to be justified by the fact that 
the participants in the combination or conspiracy may 
have some object beneficial to themselves or their as- 
sociates which possibly they might have been at liberty 
to pursue in the absence of the statute.” (254 U. S. 467). 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 205 


Thus, whether the workers use peaceful or other means to 
resist the attacks of the capitalists, these means become illegal 
when they are effective. 

And the most effective means of resisting the encroach- 
ments of capitalists is for the workers to organize and present 
a solid front to their enemy. Such organization is, in the eyes 
of the Supreme Court, a conspiracy—a crime. 


“The accepted definition of a conspiracy is ‘a 
combination of two or more persons by concerted ac- 
tion to accomplish a criminal or unlawful purpose, 
or to accomplish some purpose not in itself criminal 
or unlawful by criminal or unlawful means. If the 
purpose be unlawful it may not be carried out even 
by means that otherwise would be legal; and although 
the purpose be lawful it may not be carried out by 
criminal or unlawful means.” (254 U. S. 443, 465). 


The workers are hit by the courts from all directions. When 
the means used by them to beat back the attacks of their em- 
ployers is lawful, then their purpose is declared unlawful. When 
their purpose is not declared unlawful, then the means are 
branded illegal. 

Walter Gordon Merritt has well summed up the significance 
of this decision in Law and Labor, official organ of the “League 
for Industrial Rights’—an organization of conservative em- 
ployers. He said: 


“Class war is not a lawful occupation. Class so- 
lidarity is not an economic relationship which justifies . 
concerted action by all members of that class to assist 
one of their fellows in fighting a member of another 
class,”’23) 


The meaning of the Duplex Decision is: “Workers of Amer- 
ica, divide!” 


23) Law and Labor, June 1922, page 140. 


206 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


The command of the Supreme Court is: “Workers, don’t 
stick together!” 


B. THE AMERICAN STEEL FOUNDRIES CASE 


In 1914 this company with mills at Granite City, Illinois, 
applied for an injunction against the Tri-City Central Trades 
Council to restrain “picketing in every form and violence and 
threats.” The District Court enjoined picketing on the ground 
that the pickets placed by the Council were neither representa- 
tives of strikers nor strikers themselves. ‘They were branded as 
“wanton intermeddlers.” In the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals 
this decision was overruled, in a declaration that peaceful pick- 
eting is lawful. Then the Supreme Court overturned this de- 
cision. On December 5, 1921, it declared that that which is pro- 
perly called picketing cannot be called peaceful and that there- 
fore all picketing is, properly speaking, unlawful. Mr. Merritt 
thus saw the meaning of this decision: 


“A notable fact is that the decision rendered by 
Mr. Chief Justice Taft was concurred in by all the court 
except Mr. Justice Clark. It holds that picketing, as 
it is commonly understood and practiced, is inherently 
unlawful and it is properly enjoined by name.’”4) 


This ukase against picketing was hurled at the workers in 
these words: 


“The name ‘picket’ indicated a militant purpose, 
inconsistent with peaceable persuasion. The crowds 
they drew made the passage of the employees to and 
from the place of work one of running the gauntlet. 
Persuasion or communication attempted in such a 
presence and under such conditions was anything but 
peaceable and lawful. When one or more assaults or 
‘disturbances ensued, they characterized the whole cam- 


24) Ibid, page 141. 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 207 


paign, which became effective because of its intimidat- 
ing character, in spite of the admonitions given by 
the leaders to their followers as to lawful methods to 
be pursued, however sincere. Our conclusion is that 
picketing thus instituted is unlawful and cannot be 
peaceable and may be properly enjoined by the specific 
term because its meaning is clearly understood in the 
sphere of the controversy by those who are parties to it. 


“We think that the strikers and their sympathizers 
engaged in the economic struggle should be limited to 
one representative for each point of ingress or egress 
in the plant or place of business and that all others 
be enjoined from congregating or loitering at the plant 
or in the neighboring streets by which access is had to 
the plant, that such representatives should have the 
right of observation, communication and _ persuasion 
but with special admonition that their communication, 
arguments, and appeals shall not be abusive, libelous 
or threatening, and that they shall not approach indivi- 
duals together but singly, and shall not in their single 
efforts at communication or persuasion obstruct an un- 
willing listener by importunate following or dogging 
his steps. 

“We are a social people and the accosting of one 
another in an inoffensive way and an offer by one to 
communicate and discuss information with a-view to 
influencing the other’s action are not regarded as ag- 
gression or a violation of that other’s rights. If, how- 
ever, the offer is declined, as it may rightfully be, then 
persistence, importunity, following and dogging be- 
come an unjustifiable annoyance and obstruction which 
is likely soon to savor of intimidation. From all of 
this the person sought to be influenced has a right to be 
free and his employer has a right to have him free.” 
(The American Steel Foundries Company v. Tri-City 
Central Trades Council). (42 U. S. Sup. Ct. 72). 


This decision takes the heart out of picketing as a weapon 
of the workers in the class war against their employers. It brings 


208 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


into bold relief the brutal class dictatorship oppressing the 
workers. Never has there been a decision telling employers 
how many strikebreakers or gunmen they are to hire. There is 
not a single court ruling prohibiting strikebreakers or gunmen 
from insulting, intimidating, and killing the workingmen. When 
it comes to murdering workers there is no talk of “importunity.” 
Then there is no talk about where the gunmen should stand when 
they shoot the workers. The courts have not deigned to inter- 
fere with such activities. And we are “a social people”! 

In this decision the Supreme Court has given but one com- 
mand to the workers. This command is: “Workers, don’t fight 
together!” 


C. TRUAX v. CORRIGAN 


By a vote of 5-4 the Supreme Court, on December 19, 1921, 
overruled the Arizona Supreme Court and declared unconstitu- 
tional an Arizona State Law based on the Clayton Act and limit- 
ing the use of injunctions. 

During a strike pickets were posted at a restaurant. They 
carried banners reading: “All ye who enter here leave all hope 
behind.” They distributed circulars telling about the “grave- 
yard stews” served inside. The employers carried the case to 
the Supreme Court on the ground that the State Law was uncon- 
stitutional. The Supreme Court upheld the employer and de- 
creed: 


“The defendants conspired to injure and destroy 
plaintiff’s business by inducing his heretofore willing 
patrons and his would-be patrons not to patronize him 
and they influenced them to withdraw or withhold their 
patronage....Plaintiff’s business is a property right 
and free access for employees, owner, and customers 
to his place of business is incidental to such right.... 

“A law which operates to make lawful such a 
wrong as is described in plaintiff’s complaint deprives 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 209 


the owner of the business and the premises of his pro- 
perty without due process and cannot be held valid un- 
der the Fourteenth Amendment.” (42 U. S. Sup. Ct. 
124). 


Apropos of this decision, the well-known advocate of capi- 
talist interests, Walter Gordon Merritt, declared: 


“The Court held that the State’s duty did not end 
with the maintenance of peace and good order and it 
may not withdraw protection from a property right 
merely because the injury is not caused by violence. 

“A political commandment had been thundered 
from the greatest tribunal in the world to the legisla- 
tures of 48 States, “Thou shalt not deny protection to 
business’.”>) (Our Italics). 


Violence or no violence—effective resistance to the capital- 
ists is a crime in the eyes of the Government of the employing 
interests. The third Commandment of the Supreme County was 
“Workers, don’t fight successfully!” 


D. THE CORONADO DECISION 


The crowning blow administered to the workers by the 
Supreme Court came in the decision rendered on June 5, 1922, 
in the case of the Coronado Coal Co., et al, v. The United Mine 
Workers of America. The union was sued by the mining com- 
panies for damages incurred to their properties by a strike. The 
Circuit Court of Appeals of the Eighth Circuit found for the 
employers and ordered the Union to pay $200,000 to the plain- 
tiff. To this was added $25,000 counsel fees to the lawyers— 
the very same lawyers who prosecuted the Danbury Hatters’ 
Case. The damages were irebled in accordance with the provi- 
sions of the anti-Trust law and $120,000 accumulated interest 


25) Ibid, pages 140-141. 


210 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


was piled on to make the total liability of the Union $745,000.. 
On appeal the case reached the Supreme Court which found that: 


‘1. The fact that a union is unincorporated does 
not make it immune from action under the anti-trust 
laws. 

2. Unions are subject to such legal action when 
their conduct interfering with the business of the em- 
ployer is of such a character as to interfere with inter- 
state commerce. 

3. That international officers are not necessarily 
responsible for acts of violence committed in local 
strikes. 


The court held that in this case the International was not 
responsible. It held District 21, United Mine Workers of Amer- 
ica responsible and went out of its way to express regrets that 
the International could not be made to pay the employers be- 
cause of the Judges’ inability to connect it with the objectionable 
incidents in the strike in Arkansas. The Supreme Court went 
on to say: 


“The circumstances are such as to awaken regrets 
that in our view of the federal jurisdiction, we cannot 
affirm the judgment. 


“In this state of federal legislation, we think that 
such organizations are suable in the federal courts for 
their acts and that funds accumulated to be expended 
in conducting strikes are subject to execution in suits 
for torts committed by such unions in strikes. 

“The membership of the union has reached 450.- 
000. The dues received from them for the national 
and district organizations make a very large annual to- 
tal, and the obligations assumed in travelling expenses, 
holding conventions, and general overhead cost, but 
most of all in strikes, are so heavy that an extensive 
financial business is carried on, money is borrowed, 
notes are given to banks, and in every way the union 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 2u1 


acts as a business entity, distinct from its members. No 
organized corporation has greater unity of action, and 
in none is more power centered in the governing exe- 
cutive bodies. 


“It would be unfortunate if an organization with 
as great powers as this International Union has in the 
raising of large funds and in directing the conduct of 
400,000 members in carrying on, in a wide territory, 
industrial controversies and strikes, out of which so 
much unlawful injury to private rights is possible, 
could assemble its assets to be used therein free from 
liability for injuries by torts committed in the course 
of such strikes. To reward persons injured to a suit 
against each of the 400,000 members to recover dam- 
ages and to levy on his share of the strike fund, would 
be to leave them remediless.” 


The Supreme Court went out of its way, in the obiter dicta, 
to begrudge the growth of the United Mine Workers. 

This decision is to the American workers what the Taff- 
Vale Decision was to their English brothers. This fiat decreed 
that an unincorporated union may be sued and be held fully re- 
sponsible for injury to property arising from a strike. Thus 
was the Clayton Act—the Gompers Magna Charta of the Ameri- 
can workers—wiped away completely. Coupled with the Hinch- 
man ukase of the Supreme Court that a union cannot wage a 
campaign of organization amongst workers who have been forced 
to sign individual contracts, it deals a death blow to the trade 
unions of the country. 


E. THE CHILD LABOR DECISION 


But the Supreme Court’s lust for service to the employing 
class is not satisfied by merely oppressing the grown-up work- 
ers. On May 15, 1922, the Supreme Court declared unconstitu- 
tional, for a second time, a child labor law enacted by Congress. 


212 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


In 1916 Congress passed a law enjoining the transportation 
in interstate commerce of manufactured goods not removed 
from the factories where children under fourteen were employed, 
or children who worked more than eight hours a day or after 7 
at night or before eight in the morning. 


In the case of Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 251, the 
Supreme Court in 1918 declared the law unconstitutional. It 
found that the law was in violation of the Tenth Amendment, 
for it interfered with the rights of the States and the people as 
specified in this amendment. 


Then, in 1919 Congress enacted a law levying a tax of ne 
tenth of the net profits on manufacturers who, during any por- 
tion of a taxable year, knowingly employed children under four- 
teen years of age, or children from fourteen to sixteen for more 
than eight hours a day, or more than six days a week, or after 
7 P. M. and before 8 A. M. Under this Statute the Drexel Fur- 
niture Company of North Carolina was compelled to pay 
$6,312.79. The District Court ordered the tax returned to the 
company. The case was finally brought to the Supreme Court 
which held that this law is invalid because it 

““....Provides a heavy exaction for a departure 
from a detailed and specified course of conduct in busi- 
ness. . . There comes a time in the extension of the 
penalizing features of the so-called tax when it loses - 
its character as such and becomes a mere penalty with 
the characterization of regulation and punishment. Such 
is the case of the law before us.” 


The rights of the States must be preserved when it comes 
to preventing the ruthless exploitation of child labor. But these 
same State rights vanish when troops are to be sent in to crush 
strikes. The rights of the States are supreme when the law of 
profits demands it; the rights of the States fade in the background 


- 


THE COURTS AND THE WORKERS 213 


when the interests of the workers are involved. This is the 
brazen ruling of the bulwark of American capitalism. 


Conclusion. 


The Supreme Court is an inherent feature of the whole 
American Governmental system. It is the apex of the American 
State—the Government of the bosses, by the bosses, for the bosses, 
and against the workers. It is one of the most deadly weapons 
used by the employers against the workingmen. It is the 
most effective strikebreaking machine of the country. The his- 
tory of the Supreme Court and the American courts in general 
is a history replete with oppression of the workers, with unutter- 
able crimes committed against the workers, and with inestimable 
service to the capitalists. 

The courts, an integral part of the United States Govern- 
ment, are the mortal enemy of the working class. 


CHAPTER VIII. 
“GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION” 


“Tf the jails of Indiana are not large enough to 
hold the men who violate these injunctions, then we 
shall build stockades.” Judge Baker sitting in the Fe- 
deral Court at Indianapolis. 


Historical Background. 


f peat injunction, as a weapon of class warfare, is distinctly 
American. ‘Thruout the entire history of the British Courts 
of Chancery, the parents of our courts of equity, there were 
eranted but two restraining orders against workingmen in their 
strugele with employers. ‘The first case was that of the “Spring- 
head Spinning Company vs. Riley” in 1867 restraining workers 
from publishing notices advising other workingmen as to the 
why and wherefore of their strike. This decision was nullified 
by the highest British Court in 1873. In 1900 there was issued 
the second and last English injunction against workingmen—the 
Taff-Vale Decision. This order enjoined the Amalgamated So- 
ciety of Railway Servants “from persuading or otherwise en- 
deavoring to prevent persons from working for the plaintiff, etc., 
etc.” The Court of Appeals reversed the decision but the Brit- 
ish Supreme Court, the House of Lords, subsequently upheld it. 
This led to a country-wide protest manifested in the rapid 
strengthening of the present powerful British Labor Party and 
in forcing the English Parliament to overrule the House of 
Lords by passing the Trades Dispute Bill. 
214 


“GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION” 215 


Our First Injunctions. 


A Massachusetts court issued the First American injunction 
in 1888 on the basis of the English Springhead Spinning 
Company Case. In this case of Sherry vs. Perkins, the Court 
enjoined the strikers from “the act of displaying banners with 
devices as a means of threats and intimidation to prevent per- 
sons from entering into or continuing in the employment of the 
plaintiffs.” 


At about this time, the workers were manifesting growing 
signs of awakening. They were developing their unions to 
menacing proportions. The Knights of Labor had risen to the 
zenith of its power, over 600,000 members in 1886. The Ameri- 
can Federation of Labor was also organized the same year. This 
growing class-consciousness of the workers had its counterpart 
in an intensified class-consciousness of the capitalists. The class 
struggle was being steadily sharpened. This injunction served 
as the pilot in the discovery of their capitalist “conscience” by 
the courts. Since then this employing class “conscience,” like 
the “king’s conscience” in feudalism, residing in the judicial 
lords, has caused countless ravages among the workingmen and 
has brought unlimited advantages to the employers. Numerous 
injunctions came in the wake of the Massachusetts order. 


In 1890 came the injunction against the Typographical 
Union No. 3 of Cincinnati, enjoining the local from continuing 
a boycott. In the Coeur d’Alene Strike of 1892 Federal Judge 
Beatty issued an injunction in the Circuit Court of Idaho. This 
was followed March 11, 1893, by the order issued against the 
railway workers by Judge Ricks in the Federal Court, Northern 
District of Ohio. The comment of this judge is particularly 
enlightening. It completely portrays the emergency character 
of this procedure in meeting capitalist class interests. Judge 


Ricks declared: 


216 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“Tt is said the orders issued in this case are without 
precedent. Any just order, or rule known to equity 
courts was born of some emergency to meet some new 
conditions, and was therefore in its time without pre- 
cedent. If based on sound principles and beneficent 
results follow their enforcement affording necessary 
relief to the one party without imposing illegal burdens 
on the other, new remedies and unprecedented orders 
are not unwelcome aids to the Chancellor to meet the 
constantly varying demands for equitable relief.” 


One of the “beneficent results” of this case was the im- 
prisonment of an engineer who had refused to obey the ukase. 

One week after this order, came an even more sweeping in- 
junction by Wm. H. Taft, then Judge of the United States District 
Court of Southern Ohio. It prohibited the Brotherhoods of 
Locomotive Engineers and Locomotive Firemen from taking any 
steps whatsoever in accordance with their constitution or other- 
wise in refusing to handle freight cars of the Toledo & Ann Ar- 
bor Railroad Company. 

These were the injunctions forming the precedents upon 
which the numerous restraining orders against labor were based. 
The history of the class struggle in America after this date is 
replete with casualties suffered by the workers thru injunctions. 


The Injunction as a Weapon of Class Warfare. 


In the olden days in England the Courts of Equity or the 
injunction Courts were in the hands of the Lord Chancellor. He 
was the keeper of the “king’s conscience.” ‘Today, the equity 
or injunction courts are in the hands of the Judge. Today, Ca- 
pital is king. The capitalist class is the ruling class. And the 
Judge is now the keeper of the capitalist’s “conscience.” 

The injunction judge is totally unrestrained in his role of re- 
straining the workers. Existing statutory provisions, precedents, 


1) Quoted by John P. Frey in “The Labor Injunction,” page 14. 


“GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION” 217 


constitutional declarations, do not matter a straw. Only the 
capitalist’s “conscience” counts. The punishment is swift, and 
sure. The delay arising from trial by jury is done away with. 
The jury trial is denied. 


When a blow is struck at the workers thru an injunction the 
punishment accorded the guilty is double. First, the workingman 
is punished for violating the injunction. Then he is punished 
for committing the “crime”. This is the way the capitalists apply 
the principle of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of 
cure’ when they settle the question of curing the worker of 
class-consciousness. Judge Henry Clay Caldwell, formerly pre- 
siding in the Eighth Circuit of the United States Circuit Court of 
Appeals, has well characterized the injunction in the following: 


“It enforces and restrains with equal facility the 
criminal laws of the State and Nation. With it the 
judge not only restrains and punishes the commission 
of crimes defined by statute, but he proceeds to frame 
a criminal code of his own, as extended as he sees pro- 
per, by which various acts, innocent in law and morals, 
are made criminal; such as standing, walking or march- 
ing on the public highway, or talking, speaking, or 
preaching and other like acts. In proceedings for 
contempt for alleged violation of the injunction, the 
judge is the lawmaker, the injured party, the prosecu- 
tor, the judge and the jury. It is not surprising that 
uniting in himself all these characters he is commonly 
able to obtain a conviction. While the penalty which 
the judge can inflict by direct sentence for a violation 
of his code is fine or imprisonment, limited only by his 
discretion, capital punishment may be inflicted by in- 
direction. All that seems to be necessary to this end 
is to issue a writ to the marshal or sheriff commanding 
him to prevent a violation of the judge’s code, and 
the men with injunction nooses around their necks 
may be quickly dispatched if they attempt to march 
across the injunction deadline.... 


218 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“Jury and injunction are terms which cancel each 
other. 

“In proportion as the injunction is expanded, the 
right of trial by jury is restricted. And this result is 
not a mere incident to the use of the writ; in many 
cases its real purpose is to deprive a party of a right of 
a trial by jury. 

“Armed with this powerful writ, which has no de- 
finite boundaries or limitations, and which may be 
used at discretion, the power—the federal chancellor 
—may be fairly characterized as imperial.”?) 


A strike is a challenge to the status quo of property rela- 
tionships—the existing system of the exploitation of the workers 
by the capitalists. A strike is a disturbance of the civil peace. 
A strike is a declaration of war by the workers against the right 
of the exploiters to rob them of the products of their toil. As 
the working class increases in numbers and solidarity the class 
struggle becomes sharper; the system of property relationships 
becomes more and more disturbed by every strike; every strike 
tends to assume larger dimensions; working class consciousness 
tends to be diffused over ever-increasing sections of the masses; 
and the Government is inevitably called upon with a persistently 
increasing frequency to fulfill its role of perpetuating the status 
quo of class relationships. 

When a strike, the embryo of insurrection against the exist- 
ing system of class relationships, assumes proportions of a na- 
ture challenging in the least the system of capitalist exploita- 
tion and oppression, the employers abrogate the civil law, the 
law governing the class relationships during the armistice in 
the class war. They declare a state of siege. They declare mar- 
tial law. The injunction against workers in struggle with their 
employers is an act of military siege in the arena of class rela- 
tionships. It robs the workers of the right to trial by the or- 


2) Quoted Ibid pages 75-76. 


“GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION” 219 


dinary procedure. The judge becomes the military officer act- 
ing as the prosecutor, the jury, and the injured party. ‘The 
menace to the capitalist interests is then so fundamental that the 
judge throws off his mask of impartiality, and poses as an open © 
representative of the employer whose interests have been injured 
by the revolt of the workers against his right to exploit them 
unmercifully. 

The full force of the Government is brought to bear on the 
workers. The revolt is crushed. Whatever advantages the 
workers may have had in the suddenness of their attack, what- 
ever advantages they may have had from the first successes in 
the skirmish, from their solidarity are nullified. The working- 
man’s strike army is ordered disbanded, dispersed if necessary 
by the force of arms. Working class solidarity is declared a 
crime against the “public”! The officers of the workers’ army 
are branded as-¥ebets; they are court-martialed by the military 
tribunal of one judge. The revolt against the exploiter is 
crushed. The strike is broken. The challenge to the authority 
of the profits system—the Government—is disposed of swiftly 
and decisively. Profits are saved. The workingmen are beaten. 
This is a picture of the class war today in America. The role 
of the injunction is to break the strikes by bringing up against 
the workers the heavy artillery of the capitalists—the undivided 
military, judiciary, and financial support of the Government, in 
short the full political power of the ruling class. 


The increasing use of the injunction gives the lie to the im- 
partial role assigned to the Government by the labor bureau- 
crats. It gives the lie to the theory that the American workers 
can have the slightest faith in their Government when class in- 
terests are involved. The injunction completely unmasks the 
dictatorship of the employing class over the workers. 


LY 


220 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


The Daugherty Injunction. 


During 1922 came the wave of resistance to the open shop 
drive. Over 1,500,000 strikers participated in the strikes called 
to repel the mad onslaught of the capitalists in their union- 
smashing and wage-cutting drive. The huge strikes—particu- 
larly the national textile, mine and railway struggles—generated 
a magnificent spirit of solidarity amongst the workers. They 
were beginning to see thru things and especially thru the fraud 
of governmental impartiality and the snare and delusion of ca- 
pitalist democracy. Though these strikes were not revolutionary 
in the sense of being a direct challenge to the Government, yet 
they were a great menace to the continuity of the flow of divi- 
dends. In this way they bore within themselves the germ of the 
destruction of the supreme capitalist authority founded on the 
continuity of dividends—the capitalist political power. Prepar- 
ing to crush the workers, the Government exaggerated to the nth 
degree the revolutionary character of these struggles. The charge 
that these battles were against the Government were true only 
indirectly, in the sense that they were against the employing 
class. But utilizing this pretense the Government proceeded 
with more arrogance and viciousness against the workers. Pre- 
liminary to the injunction of September 1, Daugherty organized 
a raid on the Communists—the militant workers who understand 
the true strikebreaking role of the Government in the class war 
and who advocate a policy of complete working class emanci- 
pation from the yoke of capitalist exploitation and the tyranny 
of employing class government. The attack on these workers 
was merely a covert attack on unionism. Hundreds of thou- 
sands of workers realize this, as shown by the following opinion 
of the Locomotive Engineer’s Journal: 


“Without any warrant or shadow of legal author- 
ity, and in plain violation of the terms under which the 


“GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION” 221 


Department of Justice secures its appropriation from 
Congress, Mr. Daugherty sent his sleuths up into Michi- 
gan to pounce upon a group of workers who were 
quietly holding a private meeting near the city of St. 
Joseph. He gives the same excuse for this abuse of 
power, namely, that these union men are ‘dangerous 
radicals’. 

Vif ‘Atiomney Gederal Daugherty can clap them into 
jail, because he does not like their opinions, he can 
practice the same outrage on any group which incurs 
his displeasure.”?? 


And the New Majority, official organ of the Chicago Federa- 
tion of Labor, goes on to say: 


“Now more than ever is it plain that the cause of 
the raids is the concern of the labor movement, and 
that an attack on ‘reds’ is a covert attack on Unionism.” 


One week after this raid, one week after the press of the 
country was painted red with the terrible horrors of the havoc 
brought on by the railroad workers who were branded commun- 
ists, revolutionists, and scores of other names abhorrent to the 
oppressors of the workers, the Government secured its infamous 
injunction. This Daugherty injunction was the most drastic 
example of “preventative legislation” in the history of the class 
struggle in America. It marked the highest point of develop- 
ment in the entire injunction system. It established martial law 
against the railway workers and subjected the strikers to a state 
of rigorous military siege. All talking, publishing, financing, 
organizing, picketing, and every other conceivable form of strike 
activity was prevented by the Government on the threat of using 
the army against the workers. This injunction was only the first 
of a series of gigantic moves to crush the workers’ resistance to 
the capitalists. Anent this, the New York Sun declared: 


3) Locomotive Engineers’ Journal, Nov. 1922, page 310. 


222 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“The United States Government, it was conceded 
today, has come face to face with the necessity of en- 
forcing the order of its own court and of defying or- 
ganized labor to disobey the orders of the judiciary. 
That the Government is determined to force the whole 
issue to a showdown and to use all its powers, including 
that of the military, to sustain the injunction order 
granted by Judge Wilkerson in Chicago yesterday has 
been made known both at the White House and at the 
War Department.) 


Daugherty’s policy was summed up in the following in- 
struction sent by him on the eve of the injunction to all Federal 
District Attorneys: 


“In cases where injunctions have been violated 
you are instructed under direction of the court to 
promptly and vigorously prosecute the violators and 
urge the court to make sentences sufficiently severe to 
prevent repetition of such violations and as a deterrent 
to others.” 


And in his address at Canton, Ohio, on October 21, 1922, 
Daugherty heralded his injunction as an attempt to save the 
freedom of the Ae He asked: 


“Is itn pBotter to have men again at work, as they 
now aregthan confined in jails, as many of hen would 
be had this injunction not been issued?” 


Provisions of the Injunction. 


The injunction against the railway workers prohibited them 
from: 


1. Interfering with or hindering in any manner 
or obstructing the railroads in the operation of their 
systems of transportation. 


4) The New York Sun, September 2, 1922. 


“GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION” 223 


2. Interfering with any one from freely entering 
into or continuing in the employment of the railroad 
companies. 

3. Conspiring to annoy employees of railroad 
companies; from making threats to workers; jeering 
or taunting employees. 

4. Loitering on railroad property, or trespas- 
sing upon the premises of the railroads. 

5. Inducing or attempting to induce any person 
to leave the employ of the railroads. 

6. Engaging in picketing. 

7. Congregating for the purpose of encouraging 
or furthering the strike. 

8. Encouraging strikers or directing by letters, 
phones, interviews in newspapers, or in any manner 
whatsoever conducting the walkout. On this point 
the petition asks that the union officials be restrained 
from issuing any instructions, requests, public state- 
ments or suggestions in any way to any defendant or 
to any official or member of any: of the associated la- 
bor organizations with reference to their conduct sub- 
sequent to their abandonment of the employment of 
the railway companies. 

9. Use of funds of the union in the conduct of 
the strike. 


The above nine commandments were applicable to every 
workingman who might conceivably be connected in the most 
inconceivable way with the strike activities. This ukase of the 
United States Government in whose name the injunction was 
secured and whose Attorney General acted in the Court as the 
chief counsel for the railway corporations can be summed up 
in a tenth commandment: “The strike must be broken. The 
Open Shop must be supreme!” 


Ravages of the Injunction. 


This injunction is the most drastic ever obtained in the 
courts of America. It is the most far-reaching and brazen piece 


224 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


of open-shop and outright anti-union propaganda ever issued 
by any capitalist publicity organization, employers’ association, 
court, or Government, or any other strikebreaking agency. This 
injunction is the last word that the American employing class 
dictatorship has spoken in the class struggle. It is a challenge 
to the workers to wake up and kick and kick hard. 

What crimes have the railway workers committed to be de- 
nied every possible right of free speech, press, assembly, associ- 
ation, communication, intercourse, suggestion, and barest exist- 
ence? Has any brutal warden in the darkest of dungeons ever 
worked out more sweeping and more stringent prohibitions for 
his most dangerous criminals? The United States Government, 
formally acting in behalf of all the people, actually serving the 
interests of the powerful capitalists, has in this injunction de- 
creed that the railway workers be denied the right to strike. 
It has robbed the workers of every vestige of liberty that is still 
supposed to be left to the American workers under the Constitu- 
tion. This injunction is a declaration of formal obsequy over 
the right to strike. It makes impossible every possible strike 
activity. 

Within two months after the issuance of this strikebreaking 
fiat scores of workingmen were thrown into jails or fined thru- 
out the country. In Oregon three were arrested. Forty were 
taken in Wisconsin:and an equal number in Nebraska. By No- 
vember 15, 107 were arrested in the Chicago district alone. In 
California eight railway workers were found guilty of a con- 
spiracy against the United States. In Jacksonville, Florida, 
United States Judge Call raled, on November 25, 1922, that the 
section of the Clayton Act providing for a trial by jury in cases 
of alleged violations of injunctions was unconstitutional and 
that the striking shopmen could not therefore get a trial by jury. 
And this is only a very partial toll of the casualties suffered 
by the workers in the form of jail sentences and fines. 


“GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION” 225 


The Capitalists Are Desperate 


The crime commitied by the workers was that of striking 
and striking well. The workers were guilty of solidarity—class 
solidarity. And working class solidarity has been looked upon 
by employers and their agents, their Governments, their press 
and their defenders as a conspiracy. In the eyes of the ex- 
ploiters, this is the most infamous and dangerous crime—a con- 
spiracy against their profits. - 

Most of those whose “right to work” our strikebreaking 
Government was protecting were criminals. From the oficial 
admission of the police authorities in the very city where the 
injunction was born, Washington, we get the facts. Said In- 
spector Clifford L. Grant on September 28, 1922: 


“We believe that the recent series of burglaries, 
hold-ups and other crimes is due largely to the influx 
of tough characters who have been strikebreakers in 
railroad shops.” 


And yet the press told us that the injunction was issued to 
safeguard law and order! 

The injunction was issued to break the strike of honest 
workingmen for a right to wages of minimum subsistence, for a 
right to maintain their unions, and to work under conditions less 
unutterable. This is a crime in the eyes of the capitalists. It 
becomes a particularly heinous crime in the eyes of the em- 
ploying class Government when the fight against the capitalists 
is fraught with the danger of workers’ success. In the case of 
the railway strike the danger was great. The capitalists them- 
selves, though in this instance they were the most powerful ones 
in the country, could not break the strike without the undivided 
support of the Government. The solidarity of the striking work- 
ers was magnificent. Naturally then the conspiracy against the 
whole capitalist class in the United States, as personified by the 


226 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


National Government, was outrageous. But the words of con- 
demnation used by DeWitt Cuyler of the Railway Executives, 
by Daugherty, who in his injunction speech protested four times 
that he was not “appearing as an attorney for the railway exe- 
cutives,” and by Judge Wilkerson give away the solidarity of 
interests lined up against the workers—the conspiracy against the 
workingmen. 

Said DeWitt Cuyler in his reply to B. M. Jewell’s telegram 
of June 27th: 


“Tf you strike it will be against an order of a Gov- 
ernmental tribunal. Tt will be a sirike against the 
Government of the United States.”>) (Our Italics). 


Said Attorney General Daugherty representing the Govern- 
ment in his injunction plea against the railway unions: 


“But it may be understood that so long and to the 
extent that I can speak for the Government of the United 
States, I will use the power of the Government of the 
United Siates within my control to prevent the labor 
unions of the country from destroying the open shop.” 


(Our Italics). 


Finally the injunction Judge Wilkerson declared in the 
statement of the Court: 


“The defendants, dissatisfied with said rulings of 
the Labor Board, entered into a combination and con- 
spiracy to disregard it, and to quit the service of the 
railroad companies in a body at one and the same time, 
as a protest against the contempt for said decision of 
the Labor Board of the Government of the United 
States.” 


Nor was Justice very blind in this case. As soon as Daugh- 
erty finished his brief for the railway employers, the Justice 
made haste to pronounce: 


5) American Railroads, July 13, 1922. 


“GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION” 227 


“I do not deem it necessary to take this matter 
under advisement. ‘The questions involved are so fun- 
damental to the preservation of our Government that 
the restraining order asked for will issue at once.” 


At least the Judge had the courage to admit publicly, that 
in such cases where the complaint is against workingmen he did 
not take fundamental matters under repeated advisement, if 
under any at all. 


Subsequently, 287 of the affidavits submitted by Chief Coun- 
sel Daugherty for the Association of Railway Executives in sup- 
port of the violence claims were thrown out of court as worth- 
less scraps of paper by this Judge himself. This condition was 
well estimated by the late U. S. Senator “Tom” Watson, of Geor- 
gia, when he said: 


“As I read the testimony, I could not help think- 
ing that there was not an intelligent justice of the peace 
from Texas to Georgia and from Georgia to Maine 
who would not spurn that character of evidence and say 
that it had no business in court.’ 


Most of this evidence was prepared by the notorious labor- 
hating detective Wm. J. Burns, a past master in the art of fraud. 


But the injunction was an urgent necessity. For Daugherty 
admitted that because of the strike the railways were unable to 
render service. The workers must be punished for the crimes 
of the capitalists. In order to meet this pressing capitalist need 
our much-vaunted Constitution and the following laws were to- 
tally disregarded and the decree of martial law—the injunction— 
issued. 


1. Amendment I of the Constitution: “Congress 
shall make no law respecting an establishment of re- 


6) The late “Tom” Watson, U. S. Senate, September 13, 1922. 


228 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


ligion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or ab- 
ridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the 
right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to peti- 
tion the government for a redress of grievances.” 


2. The Newlands Act. “Nothing in this act shal! 
be construed to require an employee to render personal 
services without his consent, and no injunction or other 
legal process shall be issued which shall compel the 
performances by any employee against his will of a con- 
tract for personal labor or service.” 


3. Section 6 Clayton Act provides: “That the 
labor of a,human being is not a commodity or article 
of commerce. Nothing contained in the anti-trust laws 
shall be construed to forbid the existence and opera- 
tion of labor, agricultural, or horticultural organiza- 
tions, instituted for the purposes of mutual help, and 
not having capital stock or conducted for profit, or to 
forbid or restrain individual members of such organ- 
izations from lawfully carrying out the legitimate ob- 
jects thereof nor shall such organizations, or the mem- 
bers thereof, be held or construed to be illegal combin- 
ations or conspiracies in restraint of trade under the 
anti-trust laws.” 


4. Section 20 of the Clayton Act provides: “That 
no restraining order or injunction shall be granted by 
any court of the United States, or a judge or the 
judges, thereof, in any case between an employer and 
employees, or between employees, or between persons 
employed and persons seeking employment, unless ne- 
cessary to prevent irreparable injury to property, or to 
a property right of the party making the application, 
for which injury there is no adequate remedy at law 
and such property or property right must be described 
with particularity in the application, which must be in 
writing and sworn to by the applicant or by its agent 
or attorney. 

“And no such restraining order or injunction 
shall prohibit any person or persons, whether singly 
or in concert, from terminating any relation of em- 


“GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION” 229 


ployment, or from ceasing to perform any work or 
labor, or from recommending, advising, or persuading 
others by peaceful means so to do; or from attending 
at any place where any such person or persons may law- 
fully be, for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or 
communicating information, or from peacefully per- 
suading any person to work or abstain from working; 
or from ceasing to patronize or to employ any party 
to such dispute, or from recommending, advising, or 
persuading others by peaceful and lawful means to 
do so; from paying or giving to, or withholding from, 
any person engaged in such dispute, any strike bene- 
fits or other moneys or things of value; or from peace- 
ably assembling in a lawful manner and for lawful 
purposes; or from doing any act or thing which might 
lawfully be done in the absence of such dispute by 
any party thereto; nor shall any of these acts speci- . 
fied in this paragraph be considered or held to be vio- 
lations of any law of the United States.” 


However, an emergency condition had arisen. The above 
civil laws were totally cast aside. Martial law was declared 
in the railway industry. The army was held in preparation and 
the state of siege was proclaimed by the Daugherty injunction. 
A crisis was confronting the Government. Despite treason by 
the bureaucratic labor leaders, in spite of a powerful hostile 
press thundering condemnation and denunciation, despite scores 
of injunctions thruout the country, the workers were holding 
their own. Their resistance was adamant. The Government 
felt duty-bound and honor-bound to come to the rescue of the 
employers and in this rush to aid the kings of capital, the Gov- 
ernment path was strewn with continuous violations of its own 
laws by the employers and Government agents themselves. 


Conclusion. 


The Daugherty injunction is one of the hardest blows yet 
struck at labor in the United States. It challenges the right 


230 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


of the workers to strike; it brands as criminal and punishable 
accordingly all effective strikes. The full meaning of this in- 
junction was thus clearly stated by Law and Labor, the official 
organ of the reactionary employers’ League for Industrial 


Rights: 


“A strike, therefore, intended to restrain, or in- 
evitably restraining interstate commerce is unlawful. 
The Transportation Act, creating the Railroad Labor 
Board, by omission of specific condemnation of a 
strike, does not legalize one or in any sense paralyze 
the Sherman Act. 


“The early newspaper reports of this case, due 
largely to the argument of the Attorney General on 
the application for the restraining order, left some 
doubt as to whether the Government was proceeding 
to restrain the strike or merely to restrain the use of 
force, violence and intimidation in the prosecution of 
the strike. A reading of the opinion filed by Judge 
Wilkerson....makes it clear that the sirike itself is 
the object of attack, and is properly enjoined in so far 
as the strike, or any activity in furtherance thereof, 
purposes to interfere with or hinder the carriers in 
their performance of their statutory duties to transport 
freight, passengers and the mails.””) (Our Italics). 


The challenge to the workers does not come from any par- 
ticular capitalist or group of capitalists. The challenge to the 
right to organize and to the right to strike comes from the high- 
est representative and the very personification of the whole, 
united employing class—the United States Government. Said 


Judge Wilkerson: 


“In disposing of this motion it may be well at the 
outset to emphasize what this case is not. It is not 
a case between employer and employees, or between 


7) Law and Labor, October 1922, page 270. — 


“GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION” 231 


employers and employees, or between persons em- 
ployed and persons seeking employment, involving 
or growing out of a dispute concerning terms of con- 
ditions of employment. It is not a private bill to en- 
join indirect injury, as one caused by a secondary 
boycott to the property of the complainant. It is, to use 
the language of Circuit Court Judge Baker, speaking for 
the Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit in Gassaway, 
vs. Borderland Coal Corporation, 278 Fed. 56, 63, a 
bill ‘in the public interest by the Government as parens 
patriae to enjoin . .. an unlawful conspiracy or com- 
bination in restraint of trade. It is the conspiracy 
which is inflicting the public injury for which redress 
is sought.” 


The supreme edict of the capitalist class in the revolt against 
the oppressive conditions forced upon the workers is: Thou 
shalt not resist! Thou shalt not strike! The Government is the 
agency thru which the whole capitalist class, the whole employ- 
ing class thinks and acts! “Government by injunction” simply 
means the Government of the capitalist class speaking in swift 
and decisive terms to the workers—laying down the law to the 
workingman and laying it down with an iron fist in the name 
of profits! 

Every strike which is at all effective means a restraint of 
trade. If this command of the Government is to remain un- 
challenged, the workers might as well disband their unions. 
They might as well prepare to bend their heads beneath the 
yoke of capitalist dictatorship. 


i aaa IX. 
THE ARMY AND THE WORKERS. 


“Governor Morrow has sent troops to our town, 
shooting and killing men and women. Please act.”— 
From telegram to President Harding by Representative 
Herman Q. Thompson, Kentucky.) 


Ae military and naval forces are used by the Government 

to secure the profits of the employers abroad and to main- 
tain law and order at home. The class that controls the Gov- 
ernment, the ruling employing class, also controls the army and 
navy. When these forces fight the battles of the capitalists in 
foreign lands, then we are told that our “national honor” is at 
stake. When the army is called on to serve at home it is pres- 
umably to protect life and property and maintain peace. In 
both instances, regardless of what smoke screen the Government 
may bring on, these forces are used to protect the interests of the 
employers and crush the aspirations of the workers. 

There are today very few who do not understand that the 
last war was a bloodfest to maintain the interests of the employ- 
ers of one group of capitalist countries as against the interests 
of the employers of another group of capitalist countries. The 
Great War was a war to keep the world safe for capitalist de- 
mocracy. Also, few workers are today afflicted with any illusions 
as to the role of the military forces in the proletarian struggle 
against employing class exploitation and oppression. The only 


1) New York Times, February 5, 1922, page 17. 
232 


THE ARMY AND THE WORKERS 233 


property the military and naval forces protect is that of the 
property owning class—the capitalists. The lives the army and 
navy save during strikes are mainly lives of the strikebreakers. 
In this task the military forces are strongly assisted by the deputy 
sheriffs and private gunmen. ‘The only peace the military main- 
tain is that of the peace of profits. They help drive the strikers 
back to work thru intimidation and ruthless violence. 


The struggles of the American workers abound with evidence 
of terrorism to which strikers and strike sympathizers are sub- 
‘jected. In the textile, mine, and railway strikes of 1922, the mi- 
litary forces of the State and Nation played a particularly im- 
portant role. Troops were mobilized and rushed to railway 
junction points in at least fifteen States. With the intensification 
of the struggle of the working class against its enemy, the em- 
ploying class, the use of military and naval forces against the 
workers at home is resorted to in a degree of ever-increasing 


frequency and scope. This development has thus been treated 
by Professor Commons: 


“Now the labor problem became a matter of na- 
tion-wide serious interest to the general public. Fun- 
damental changes followed. The insufficiency of the 
militia showed the need of a reliable basis of operation 
for the troops, and the construction of numerous and 
strong armories dates from 1877. The courts began 
to change their attitude toward labor unions; the strikes 
and riots brought back from oblivion the doctrine of 
malicious conspiracy as applied to labor combinations. 
The legislatures in many States enacted conspiracy 
laws against labor. But the strongest moral effect was 
upon the wage-earning class. The spirit of labor so- 
lidarity was strengthened and made national. This was 
the first time in the history of the American labor move- 
ment that Federal troops were called out in times of 
peace to suppress strikes. Nor had the State militia 
ever been used for the same purpose on so large a scale. 


234 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


The feeling of resentment engendered thereby began to 
assume a political aspect.”?? | 


It was in the railway strike of 1877 that the workers suf- 
fered the first considerable casualties at the hands of the troops. 
Three hundred federal troops were rushed to Reading and 200 
to Baltimore. In Pittsburgh the Philadelphia militiamen killed 
twenty-six people. 

From the following confidential statement appearing in the 
Nation, January 31, 1923, the “primary purpose” of the army 
today is brought to full light: , 


CONFIDENTIAL COPY 
HEADQUARTERS 
Vancouver Barracks, Washington 


Office of the Intelligence Officer 


October 16, 1922. 
Dear Sir: 

The Intelligence Service of the Army has for 
its primary purpose the surveillance of all organiza- 
tions or elements hostile or potentially hostile to the 
Government of this country, or who seek to overthrow 
the Government by violence. 

Among organizations falling under the above head 
are radical groups, as the I. W. W., World War Veter- 
ans, Union of Russian Workers, Communist Party, Com- 
munist Labor Party, One Big Union, Workers Interna- 
tional Industrial Union, Anarchists and Bolsheviki, 
and such semi-radical organizations as the Socialists, 
Non-Partisan League, Big Four Brotherhoods, and 
American Federation of Labor. 

Not only are we interested in these organizations 
because they have as their object the overthrow of the 
Government, but also because they attempt to under- 
mine and subvert the loyalty of our soldiers. 


2) History of Labor in the United States, Commons and Associates, 
Vol. II., page 190. 


THE ARMY AND THE WORKERS 235 


With the few scattered military posts in this part 
of the country, it is obviously impossible to cover all 
points as thoroughly as they should be, hence it is neces- 
sary in many cases to trust to the cooperation of law- 
enforcement officers whose duties and whose knowledge 
of a particular locality gives them a thorough insight 
into such matters. 

It is requested that you inform this office as to any 
of the aforementioned or other radical organizations 
coming to your attention under such headings as (a) 
location or headquarters, (b) names of leaders, (c) 
strength of organization, (d) activities of the organi- 
zation, (e) strikes and methods of carrying on same, 
and (f) attitude of members. We will be glad to re- 
ceive copies of pamphlets, handbills, or other radical 
propaganda spread in your vicinity. 

If from time to time you will keep me posted as to 
conditions in your vicinity, such cooperation on the part 
of yourself and your subordinates as the press of your 
duties permits will be greatly appreciated. 

Sincerely, 
W. D. Long, 
Ist Lieutenant, 7th U. S. Infantry, 
Intelligence Officer. 


In the Great Strikes of 1922. 


The following Associated Press despatch dated Washington, 
August 20, 1922, gives an idea of the energy characterizing the 
strikebreaking activities of the War Department: 


“Test Troops Firness For Duty IN STRIKES. 


~“DeEpARTMENT RECHECKS THE OCCUPATIONAL 
QUALIFICATIONS OF ENLIsTED MEN. 


“Washington, August 20 (Associated Press).—In 
order to be fully prepared for any demand that might 
be made upon it in the present industrial situation, the 
War Department is rechecking the occupational quali- 


236 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


fications of the enlisted men of the army and compiling 
information making quick action possible in the event 
that Federal troops are called upon for duty in the coal 
or rail strikes. 

“As a part of the department’s general policy of 
preparedness, corps commanders are understood to have 
been requested to advise officials here how many men 
under their command have had experience in railroad 
work and in what particular branch of railroad service 
each is most competent. Similar information regard- 
ing other trades is understood to have been gathered 
by the Department in other cases in the past. 

“Thus far no requests far Fedevel troops have been 
received by the department with either coal or rail 
strike, but Secretary Weeks and his advisors have 
taken the position that should a request come they 
should be prepared immediately to place all pertinent 
information before the President. The order regarding 
qualifications of enlisted men in railroad work was said 
to be based wholly on this desire for preparedness to 
indicate no change of policy on the part of the Federal 
Government. . .’%) (Our italics). 


At the same time the Army and Navy Journal was circulat- 
ing on a wide scale an editorial letter that the country was being 
threatened with revolution and that the army must be supported 
to save the country. This letter maintained that “there never 
was a time when the business of the country was more in need 
of the assurance of stability.” It pledged itself to have the 
army supply the needed “assurance of stability” and howled 
against the terrible communist railroad men hatching revolutions 
in the railway yards and roundhouses. Last but not least, it 
protested to the business men of the country against the elimina- 
tion of 1349 regular army line officers and the reduction of the 
grades and income of the old officers. In order to enhance the 
eficiency of the army to secure “stability” such wage cutting 


3) New York Times, August 21, 1922. 


THE ARMY AND THE WORKERS 237 


for officers must be discontinued. Subjecting officers to lower 
salaries means impairment of the efficacy of the army to crush 
the workers resisting wage cuts and degrading conditions. 

This editorial letter was an open appeal to the capitalists 
to raise the pay of the army officers in order to secure the max- 
imum help from the army in crushing the workers and condemn- 
ing them to starvation wages. 


A. THE TEXTILE STRIKE. 


At the request of the Crompton and B. B. & R. Knight Com- 
pany, Governor San Souci rushed two troops of cavalry and a ma- 
chine gun company into the Pawtucket Valley. The triumphant 
entry of the troops was marked by the death of a strike sym- 
pathizer and the wounding of seven workers on the eve of Wash- 
ington’s Birthday. This was followed by dispatching four 
Coast Artillery companies to the Blackstone Valley. All in all 
the strength of the military forces pitted against the unarmed 
strikers was: 


1. Six Hundred National Guardsmen. 
2. Five Companies of Coast Artillery. 
3. One Machine Gun Company. 


In Massachusetts and New Hampshire the task of crushing 
the strikers fell largely upon the shoulders of the local police 
forces. Numerous arrests, denial of the right to freedom of 
speech and assembly, and intimidation characterized the activities 
of the armed forces in these’ regions. 


B. THE MINERS STRIKE. 


During the mine strike the President invited the Governors 
of all coal mining States to resume operations under the protec- 
tion of the military forces. Some Governors responded cheer- 
fully. Governors Sproul of Pennsylvania and McCray of In- 


238 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


diana rushed thousands of troops to the mines. But this did not 
help, as can be seen from Harding’s subsequent confession of 
bankruptcy. Said the President: 


“But little or no production followed. The simple 
but significant truth was revealed that except for such 
coal as comes from the districts worked by unorganized 
miners, the country is at the mercy of the United Mine 


Workers.” 


But some Governors refused to take the responsibility for 
the bloodshed that the wholesale use of troops against the work- 
ers would bring on. Such was the case with Governor Albert 
C. Ritchie of Maryland. In his telegraphic reply to President 
Harding’s military appeal this Governor stated: 


“The traditions of this State are those of a people 
who have settled such matters as these without the aid 
of bayonets and rifles. It is nearly thirty years since 
our militia has been used for a purpose of this kind, 
and I do not feel, even in the face of Federal failure, 
that I should immediately agree with your assumption 
that this failure is so complete, that when the problem 
is turned back to each State I should without further 
and more mature consideration give assurances which 
might lead to filling the mine regions of Maryland with 
armed troops. 


“I am fully conscious of the responsibility which 
Maryland must share because of her coal deposits in 
helping supply the nation with fuel, but I feel that at 
this time I should not subscribe to the assumption that 
all things else have failed, and that the various States 
must give assurance now which might lead them to take 
up arms against their own people. The presence of 
troops is often not the assurance of security but the 
provocation of serious trouble. 


“While we of Maryland, facing a new situation 
which you turn back to us, consider with all due gravity 


THE ARMY AND THE WORKERS 239 


what you propose, | venture to urge with the greatest 
respect that you renew your efforts to adjust in a proper 
and peaceful way both the railroad strike and the coal 
strike, so that the country will be provided with fuel by 
methods which better befit our Republic and which will 
make for a lasting settlement instead of the doubtful 
proposition of an armed camp at each mine. i 
(Our italics). 


Anent the real significance of the use of troops in strikes, 
Governor Morrison of North Carolina went even further. He 
suggested that the mobilization of troops is actually nothing else 
but the taking of sides against the workingmen. 

The miners were not overawed by the thousands of troops. 
mobilized against them in the strike zone. They have fought 
many a battle with the Federal and State troops in the course 
of their heroic struggles against the capitalists. No outrage 
that the troops could perpetrate on their helpless wives and chil- 
dren could break their ranks. Ludlow and Mingo were still fresh 
in their memories. 


C. THE RAILROAD STRIKE. 


The Government’s height of organized violence against the 
workers was reached in the railway strike. 

As early as October, 1921, the Government was setting its 
strikebreaking machinery in order. The Navy Department’s Re- 
ceiving Station Order No. 91, dated October 21, 1921, Phila- 
delphia, Pennsylvania, called for a classification of all men with 
previous railway experience and ability in marksmanship. 

During the strike there was talk in Washington of making 
’ General Pershing Federal Rail Director. The Government picked 
Pershing for his boast that “a million men are available to 
operate the trains if necessary.” General Pershing who com- 
manded the American workingmen slaughtered on the _battle- 


240 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


fields of France is an especially outspoken hater of the labor 
unions. At a dinner in celebration of Lafayette-Marne Day 
in 1921 at Washington, Pa Pershing hurled this challenge 
to the workers. 


“The policies of this republic are not determined 
by labor unions or by any other organizations but by 
the concensus of opinion of its patriotic citizens of 
whatever afhliations. 

“It seems to be about time for someone to rise up 
and say that America shall be governed and ruled by 
American citizens and not by organizations which have 
their own selfish purposes to serve.” 


And Mr. Weeks, Secretary of War, was not soldiering on the 
job as far as the military to be commanded by Strikebreaker-in- 
Chief Pershing was concerned. He spoke plainly: 


“The Government is not going to permit the trans- 
portation service of the country to break down.” 


That this meant that Weeks pledged himself to break the 
strike is shown by the following despatch in The New York 
Times: 


“Various executive departments, it was said at the 
War Department this afternoon, have considered every 
possible means of co-operation to prevent a collapse of 
transportation. Mr. Weeks declined to go into details 
as to what measures have been considered. 

“Mr. Weeks approved suggestions that were ad- 
vanced that destroyers might be used to convey the mails 
to seaport cities with automobile truck routes laid out 
for distributing mail to inland points. It was pointed 
out that destroyers might carry mail from New York, 
Boston, Portland, Me., Washington, Baltimore, Norfolk, 
Jacksonville, New Orleans and even to San Francisco, 
trucks being used to radiate from these centers. In such 
an event, Secretary Weeks declared, it probably would 


THE ARMY AND THE WORKERS 241 


be more feasible on short hauls, as from New York to 
Boston, to carry mails by trucks, as they would serve a 
number of large cities en route. . .”4) 


Instead of compelling the railroads to abide by their con- 
tract with the Government to carry mails, the Government pre- 
pared an elaborate deadly strikebreaking machine to crush the 
workers. 


In many States the National Guard was used on such a wide 
scale ‘that special Gubernatorial proclamations were issued to 
supply the necessary strikebreaking instructions. Typical of 
these proclamations is the one issued by Governor Morrison of 
North Carolina on August 21, 1922. The military authorities 
were instructed to 


“disperse all large assemblies brought together for the 
purpose of overawing and intimidating, by a display of 
numbers, those who desire to go to work.” 


These troops were withdrawn from the repair shops only 
after the members of the Brotherhoods struck in protest against 
their presence. 

When the workers began to talk “general strike” as an 
answer to the Daugherty injunction the force of the whole army 
was invoked according to the New York World, which said: 


“Tt was intimated that one decision has been re- 
ported by the Administration leaders on the present 
situation. If the general strike materializes, now re- 
garded extremely unlikely, it will be met by the em- 
ployment of the entire army to preserve order and keep 
the wheels of industry running. Jt was pointed out 
that the Government has no alternative.”>) (Our ital- 
ics). 


4) New York Times, August 24, 1922. 
5) New York World, September 5, 1922. 


242 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


A military scene in the railway strike is thus described by 


Mr. Philip Kinsley, of the Chicago Tribune: 


....At the gates in Maple road a motor truck 
filled with soldiers, some in overseas helmets, is just 
unloading a relief guard. Opposite the gate a machine 
gun is posted. Inside the gates three more similar 
weapons are hooded. 

“The camp commands the yards, but unfortunate- 
ly it cuts off the path down which the engineers and 
shopmen have been traveling for years to their work 
in the yards. Now a sentry paces the path. The first 
night the soldiers came, Charles O’Day, general chair- 
man of the engineers of this district, had a bayonet 
pointed at him and he was ordered to halt as he started 
to take the old path downtown. This probably had a 
good deal to do with the original demand of the 
Brotherhoods that the soldiers get out. But the soldiers 
did not go. . .”6) 


This is not a scene on the battlefields in France. Nor is it 
a picture of conditions in territory occupied by a foreign army. 
It is a section on the battle front of the striking railway shopmen. 
The camp is at Joliet, Illinois, and the contending forces are the 
National Guardsmen of the State of Illinois against the striking 
railway workers of Illinois. 

At this battle one striker was killed—shot in the back. 
Sheriff Newkirk of Steel Strike gunmen notoriety, back in his old 
role, was seriously wounded. The men in the National Guard 
were mainly sons of business men, and the strikers knew it and 
hated them. 

“Sunshine soldiers, Grant Park. soldiers” was the opinion 
of the workers. Tom Gleason, leader of the striking shopmen 
commenting on the situation said: 


6) Philip Kinsley, Chicago Tribune, August 15, 1922. 


THE ARMY AND THE WORKERS 243 


“Soldiers are not needed here. These fellows are 
all right. You talk about radicalism among foreign- 
ers. There is more radicalism among Americans than 
among those other fellows.” 


The workers had reason to hate the soldiers. They were 
there to protect the strikebreakers robbing shopmen of their jobs 
and the strikers’ wives and children of bread, a home, and school. 
Ostensibly they were there to prevent violence, but the workers 
knew from their own experience that this was painfully untrue. 
The following incident described in the Farmer-Labor Union 


News is typical: 


“Add to this the report from Denison, Texas, to the 
effect that the soldiers caught, in the Katy yards, com- 
pany guards cutting air hose and otherwise seeking to 
damage company property. The soldiers expected to 
find strikers doing this, but when they saw their ‘mis- 

_take’ they let the railway thugs go.””) 


In Kansas though martial law was not declared formally, 
~ the soldiers took all matters in their own hands. Said Mr. Free- 
man, President of the Kansas State Federation of Labor: 


“Advices from railroad men in this vicinity of Her- 
rington and Wellington lead me to believe that members 
of the National Guard on duty at Herrington, and rail- 
road guards at Wellington are usurping their authority 
by forcing men returning from the harvest fields to leave 
the trains and station platforms at the points of guns 
and forcing them to enter the Rock Island and Santa Fe 
shops, telling them that if they do not go to work in 
the shops they will be prosecuted for trespassing on 
railroad property.’”®? 


7) The Farmer Labor Union News, October 19, 1922. 


8) W. E. Freeman, President. Kansas State Federation of Labor, 
quoted in “The Plumbers’ Gas and Steam Fitters’ Journal, September 1922, 


page 25. 


244 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


The following appearing in the New York World is merely a 
glimpse of the conditions to which the workers were subjected: 


“Some weeks ago, C. E. Hatfield, a Presbyterian 
minister in Herrington and the Democratic nominee for 
Congress in the Fifth Kansas District, accepted an in- 
vitation to speak at the Modern Woodmen Log Rolling 
in his own town on Labor Day. This meeting was not 
organized or promoted in any way by strikers or by or- 
ganized workingmen. 

“About a week before the celebration, Mr. Hat- 
field was asked to call at the headquarters of Colonel 
Brown, commanding the State troops stationed at Her- 
rington to guard railroad and other property and to pre- 
serve order during the strike. At his convenience, Mr. 
Hatfield went to Colonel Brown’s tent. 

“After exchanging customary greetings Colonel 
Brown asked Mr. Hatfield if it was a fact that he was to 
speak at the Log Rolling on Labor Day and Mr. Hatfield 
replied it was. Substantially the following conversa- 
tion took place: | 

“Colonel Brown—‘What are you going to talk 
about in your speech?’ 

“Mr. Hatfield—‘I am going to discuss matters in 
which we are all interested at this time.’ 

“Colonel Brown—‘You are not going to do any-- 
thing of the kind. In your speech you must not men- 
tion the strike, the Industrial Court, the Federal In- 
junction, the railroad situation in any of its phases or 
say anything that will cause anyone in the audience to 
think of any of these things.’ 

“Mr. Hatfield made no promises to Colonel Brown 
and went about his business. 


“On Monday morning, Sept. 4 Mr. Hatfield was 
visited by Captain Hennessy, commanding officer of one 
of the companies of infantry stationed at Herrington. 
Hennessy stated to Hatfield that he was acting for 
Colonel Brown, who was sick, and then took from his 
pocket a memorandum and reading from his notes gave 


THE ARMY AND THE WORKERS 245 


Mr. Hatfield positive instructions that in his speech he 
must not mention— 

“1. The railroad strike. 

“2. The Kansas Industrial Court. 

“3. The Federal Injunction against the strikers is- 
sued by Judge Wilkerson. 

“4, The railway situation in any of its phases. 

“9. And that he must not say anything in his 
speech that would cause any person in the audience to 
think of any of these things. 

“Mr. Hatfield understood from his conversations 
with Colonel Brown and Captain Hennessy that if he 
disregarded the instructions given him by the military 
authorities he would be arrested and put in jail although 
he was not told so in so many words. 

“When Mr. Hatfield took the platform he told the 
audience that he had received orders not to talk about 
certain things which he enumerated as above and that 
as little was left for him to say he would like to talk 
about twenty minutes. 

“The city of Herrington is not under martial law. 
There has been no formal suspension of the usual rights 
of citizens. The troops are on orders from Governor 
Allen, presumably for no other purpose than to protect 
life and property and preserve the peace. 

“Is it possible for me to add anything to the out- 
rage against free speech perpetrated by Colonel Brown? 

“What has bred the conditions that allow such a 
manifestation of military despotism? 

“If free speech is gone and mob law and military 
authority are supported by the Governor and by the 
courts, how long will it be until revolution will be the 
only right left to the people?....” 


In order to break the strike and rout the workingmen, the 
military forces were ready to interfere even with the lives of 
others not involved in the strike. This is the democracy the 


9) New York World, October 8, 1922, 


246 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


workingmen of Kansas are at the mercy of—a capitalist dicta- 
torship. 


Conclusion. 


This is the role played by the army in strikes. In the rail- 
road, mine, and textile strikes the military forces were particu- 
larly active against the workingmen. The employers control the 
government. ‘They thus control the military, naval, and other 
forces of oppression. 

These are the words of Major General James G. Harbord, 
Deputy Chief of Staff of the United States Army. In these 
words are struck the keynote to the employers’ policy in the use 
of the army. 


‘“‘We anticipate some trying days ahead of the firm. 
Various wild schemes of Socialism and Bolshevism are 
seeking to encroach upon our territory and to impair 
the standing of our civilization truout the country.”!” 


As the workers are developing their class solidarity the 
capitalists are preparing to use the army against them on a 
larger and more intensive scale than ever before. In his message 
of August 18, 1922, Harding called upon Congress to pass the 
measure proposed by Senator Kellogg, who has since then been 
thrown out of the Senate by the workers of Minnesota. This bill 
presumably provided “for the better protection of aliens and 
the enforcement of their treaty rights.” In this bill the Govern- 
ment showed its teeth. It aimed to secure additional pretenses 
to facilitate the throwing in of huge masses of troops against the 
workers by authorizing the President to use the army and navy 
in addition to deputy marshals to carry out the provisions in 
question. 


10) New York Times, October 5, 1922. 


THE ARMY AND THE WORKERS 247 


At the sign of the dollar the army of the Government is 
ever ready to crush the workers struggling against unspeakable 
working conditions and starvation wages. And at the sign of 
the dollar the flag goes ever marching on! 


CHAPTER X. 
THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS. 


“The compensation law was drafted by our gen- 
eral counsel, and it was enacted just as we drafted it. 
We succeeded in defeating the enactment of a compen- 
sation law until it hecame necessary for us to place a 
law on the books or else one would be placed there by 
the labor unions.”—-J. E. Edgerton, President of the 
National Association of Manufacturers, in appeal for 
new members.) 


Bie being subject to oppression by the Government 

proper the workers are also at the mercy of many extra-gov- 
ernmental associations. These are political organizations in the 
sense that they are part and parcel of the huge engine of oppres- 
sion in the hands of the ruling class—the State. Though for- 
mally not a part of the Government, these associations wield a 
tremendous political power and are of especial aid to employers 
in their struggle with the workers. 


The Main Purpose of These Organizations. 


The following illuminating remarks were made by Wallace 
M. Short, Mayor of Sioux City, Iowa, in an address before the 
Iowa League of Municipalities: 


“Every Chamber of Commerce, every Rotary Club, 
every Kiwanis Club, and some other so-called luncheon 


1) Quoted in American Federation of Labor News Letter, October 
21, 1922. 
248 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS 249 


clubs, is an organized agency of propaganda and the 
stifling of the free play of public opinion.... 

*....Lhe organized control is wholly in the hands 
of that group of business men who definitely set their 
hand to destroy root and branch the organizations which 
the people have built up for their own protection against 
unbridled rapacity. 


“The last five years have witnessed perhaps the 
most highly organized, best financed, most determined 
effort ever made by organized property interests to con- 
trol Government and industry for their own ends and 
to destroy whatever stands in their way.”?? 

Every effort of these organizations is aimed at strengthen- 
ing their power to exploit and oppress the workers—at perpetu- 
ating their economic and political power. Detective agencies, 
gigantic stoolpigeon associations, hooded hangmen banded to- 
gether in such organizations as the Ku Klux Klan, and a horde 
of thugs, gunmen, and desperate paroled criminals form the 
auxiliaries, the rear guard of this army of the employing class. 
At the head of this band of sworn foes to the working class are 
the chambers of commerce, the manufacturers’ associations, the 
powerful lobbies, and the various trade bodies. 

Typical of the energetic organization campaign in behalf 
of such associations waged by the leading capitalists is the follow- 
ing letter: 

CHILE COPPER COMPANY 
120 Broadway 


New York, August 5, 1919. 

Charles M. Schwab, Esq., 
111 Broadway, 
New York City. 
My dear Mr. Schwab: 

I take much pleasure in introducing to you Miss 
Dorothy Thompson, who desires to interest you, if pos- 
sible, in the work of the Social Unit Organization. I 


2) Quoted in “Labor,” November 25, 1922. 


250 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


hope that you will be able to spare a few minutes of 
your time to hear what she has to say as I believe that 
it will make a special appeal to you. 

Certain experiments have been undertaken by the 
organization in Cincinnati, and I am convinced that the 
results obtained have been very satisfactory. 

No social enterprise with which I am familiar 
seems to me to offer a more significant answer to the 
question of how we can develop our American demo- 
cracy along sane, constructive lines, as opposed to meth- 
ods of force and violence, than the Social Unit plan. 
I feel that the development of such a plan should have 
a strong tendency to offset much of the unrest from 
which we are now suffering, and from which we are 
likely to suffer in the future. 

In order to make such a campaign of education 
possible, it has been suggested that I should join with 
four or five others in underwriting a fund of $100,000, 
to be used in an endeavor to secure a large number of 
supporting memberships. The underwriting is, of 
course, in the nature of a loan, to be repaid to the sub- 
scribers provided sufficient funds for the purpose are 
raised thru memberships. I have therefore agreed to 
become one of the underwriters, and it is Miss Thomp- 
son’s desire to secure, if possible, your co-operation 
and aid. 


I bespeak for her your kind co-operation. 
Very sincerely yours, 
Daniel Guggenheim. 


Under sundry names these organizations are camouflaged 
to attack the workingman. Regardless of what mask they ap- 
pear under this is their sole purpose. 


Smashing the Unions. 


Indicative of the spirit characterizing the extensive drive of 
the employers, is the following statement made by A. M. Gloss- 
brenner of the Indiana Manufacturers’ Association: 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS 201 


“I happen to be running a shop which I think is 
similar to yours, Mr. Gillette, in the manufacturing 
business, in that we will not employ an individual in 
any part of the plant that does not sign an individual 
contract in which it is expressed that he is not and will 
not become a member of a labor organization while in 
our employ.) 


In a letter of invitation to membership sent to Wood F. Ax. 
ton, President of the Axton-Fisher Tobacco Company of Louis- 
ville, Kentucky, by the League for Industrial Rights, successor 
to the Anti-Boycott Association, we find this proud boast: 


“The plan of organized labor to wipe out legal 
and constitutional obstacles and to force the closed 
shop upon the country has been frustrated by our op- 
position to radical legislation and by the court de- 
cistons obtained by us for our members at our expense.” 


(Our Italics). 
Mr. Axton happened to turn down the invitation and re- 
plied: 
“This paragraph is indeed astounding, especially 


declarations that decisions of the court have been ob- 
tained by you at your expense.) 


This foe of organized labor, the League for Industrial 
Rights, publishes a magazine Law and Labor thru which it has 
waged an active campaign to have the various State Legis- 
latures enact the following two laws providing for “the social 
control of industrial warfare”: 

“}. Any voluntary association of seven or more 
members may sue and be sued in the name of the asso- 
ciation. 


“2. For better protection of public welfare 
against unwarranted strikes and lockouts. 


3) Proceedings of National Conference of State Manufacturers’ Asso- 
ciation, January 1921, page 72. 
4) See “Labor,” July 1, 1922. 


252 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“Section 1. The phrase ‘unwarranted industrial 
warfare’, as used in this statute shall mean a strike or 
lockout when carried on (a) by or in respect to em- 
ployees whose terms of employment are fixed by the 
State or the United States, or any political subdivi- 
sion thereof; (b) in violation of an agreement or for 
conditions of employment conflicting with an agree- 
ment between an employer and any labor union; or 
(c) in violation of any arbitration award, or for con- 
ditions of employment conflicting with the terms there- 
of; or (d) to enforce terms of employment where a 
request therefor has not been presented to the party 
from whom such terms are sought and a reasonable 
time given for the consideration; or (e) where there is 
no trade dispute involving issues of direct benefit to the 
acting parties.” 


Such legislation makes impossible the existence of labor or- 
ganizations. The power behind organizations like the League 
for Industrial Rights is tremendous. Since the agitation for 
these bills was initiated the Supreme Court has enacted the first 
bill as a National law thru the Coronado Decision and the United 
States Government has passed the second measure thru the 
Daugherty Injunction. 

The full force of capitalist class organization is brought 
into play against all working class organizations. Upon the an- 
nouncement that the railway workers of the Pittsburgh district 
were considering the establishment of a co-operative bank the 
employers of the district got busy to put an end to yet. plan and 
issued the following statement: 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATION OF PITTSBURGH 
March 14, 1922. 
For the Bankers of Pittsburgh: 
Personal. 
Gentlemen: Believing you will be interested, we 
beg to advise you in confidence, that there is a move- 
ment on in Pittsburgh among the trades unionists (or- 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS 293 


ganized labor) to establish a bank to be known as the 
Brotherhood Savings and Trust Company. They expect 
to have a meeting at the Moose Temple, Sunday after- 
noon, March 19, 1922, at 2 o’clock, for the purpose of 
formulating plans to organize such a bank, along the 
lines of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers’ 
Bank in Cleveland. This meeting is expected to be ad- 
dressed by Walter S. McCaleb, manager and director 
of the B. of L. E. Bank of Cleveland; W. S. Stone, 
grand chief, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers; 
Hon. Wm. J. Burke, member of Congress, and others. 


Very truly yours, 
E. B. Moreland, 


Secretary-Treasurer.®) 


But the employers do not stop at resolutions. These are 
often only the entering wedge or smoke screen for policies of 
blood and thunder. At the sessions of the American Mining 
Congress, held at Cleveland, Ohio, October 17, 1922, the fol- 
lowing scene was enacted. 

A notorious strikebreaking resolution was proposed by 
Charles Maurer, Vice-President of the Congress and one of the 
leading operators of the Central Competitive Field. It read: 


“All disputes directly affecting the public inter- 
ests, which may not be settled by mutual agreement, 
shall be determined by judicial process; that any act 
in combination with others, which act would be unlaw- 
ful if done by an individual, shall be unlawful on the 
part of all those who take part collectively and indivi- 
dually, all of whom shall be liable to damages to the 
party injured thereby; that every agreement, order, de- 
termination, or conclusion by two or more persons, 
which, if carried out, would be in restraint of trade. 
increase the cost, or restrict the production of any ar- 


5) See “Labor,” April 1, 1922. 


254, THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


ticle of commerce to the public injury shall be declared . 
unlawful, and each and every person, organization, or 
combination guilty thereof shall be properly penalized 
therefor.” 


Even the Supreme Court has not yet handed down such a 
mandate. 

It was left to J. G. Bradley, a coal magnate from West Vir- 
ginia to show that this resolution, drastic a strikebreaking pro- 
posal as it was, was only a screen behind which the real plans 
of the mine operators’ associations are hidden. In the course of 


the debates he declared: 


“There are times when the use of the rifle is ad- 
visable and when people should be sent to the king- 
dom to come. 

“The non-union States have been successful, where 
their Northern neighbors have not, in withstanding the 
aggression of predatory labor, and therefore are freer 
from the constraint of unions and uneconomic wage con- 
tracts. 

“The Southern coal producers advise us to take 
a stand for law and order as did the people in the South 
in the 1922 difficulties, and in this way to prevent the 
control of all activities by a union which is in a very 
great minority in proportion to the population of the 
nation. 

“We urge you to do it now, before it is too late 
and the irresponsible oligarchy completes its grasp of 
the coal fields and places itself in a position to control 
the means of transportation and manufacture as com- 
pletely as the labor dictatorship controls Russia.”®) 


This is plain talk—in the language so often spoken by the 
gunmen of West Virginia. 


6) See “Labor,” October 21, 1922. 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS 299 


The Open Shop in Action—A Capitalist Dictatorship. 


Let us go to Marion, the home of President Harding, to see 
how a powerful employers’ association operates. Says John P. 
Frey, Editor of the International Moulders’ Journal: 


“In Marion, the home of President Harding, and 
where he held directorship in several industrial corpo- 
rations, there existed a manufacturers’ and merchants’ 
association, organized for the purpose of maintaining 
non-union conditions. The association employed a 
secretary or commissioner, in whose office was kept a 
card index system of every employee in the industries 
of Marion. The workman’s name, age, and many other 
personal items were entered, the class of work he was 
employed on, the wages he was paid, and his qualifi- 
cations as a workman. 


“No member of the association hired a workman 
without immediately reporting to the commissioner, so 
that absolute records could be kept. Members of the 
association, by -industries, determined what the max- 
imum wage rate would be for any group of wage earn- 
ers, and no member of the association was permitted 
to pay more. There was an ironclad agreement that 
no member of the association would employ a wage 
earner who had worked for some other member without 
that member’s consent. /f a workman quit his job be- 
cause of dissatisfaction with the terms of employment. 
he found that he could not secure work unless the pre- 
vious employer gave consent. He was compelled to re- 
turn to his previous employment, or leave the city. 


“A short time before my investigation in Marion. 
some girl store clerks learned that they could earn con- 
siderably more money in one of the local candy fac- 
tories. They secured jobs in the candy factory. Short- 
ly afterwards they were notified that they must be laid 

_ off, because hiring them was contrary to the rules of 
the Marion employers’ association, and they were com- 
pelled to return to work as clerks under a considerably 


256 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


smaller wage rate than they had received as candy 
workers. The purpose of the employers’ and merch- 
ants’ association was to build an invisible, but none 
the less impassable, wall around Marion, and place their 
representative at the gateway to employment and de- 
termine who could come in and secure employment, and 
who must quit work in the industries because the em- 
ployers’ association did not want them. The Employers’ 
Association exiled workers from industry who dis- 
pleased them, as thoroughly and effectively as the Czar 
exiled those who displeased him.””) (Our italics). 


And behind the dictatorship over the workingmen in the 
United States is a highly centralized coterie of capitalists. Twenty- 
five of these giant lords of capital control 82 per cent. of the 
railways alone, not speaking of oil, steel, coal, copper, and 
other basic industries. 

Representative Edward E. Browne of Wisconsin, has clearly 
shown in the House on June 15, 1922, what such capitalist or- 
ganization means to labor: 


“It is an open boast of the great financiers who 
have obtained their great wealth largely thru the ac- 
quirement and monopolization of great natural re- 
sources—who are the owners of the railroads, coal 
mines, and who control iron, steel, copper, and petro- 
leum—that they are going to destroy organized labor. 

“They are going to attempt to do this if they stop 
production, paralyze the industries of the country, and 
let gaunt famine stalk thru the land.” 


Thru a vast and intricate system of interlocking directorates 
coupled with these extra-governmental capitalist organizations 
the employing class has established a mighty united front against 
the workers. These associations are the torchbearers in the 
crusade against labor. | 


“a> International Molders’ Journal, October 1922, pages 538-539. 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS 207 


Breaking the Railway Strike. 


In the strike of the shop crafts the employers’ associations 
were especially active. Here the capitalists displayed extraor- 
dinary class solidarity. The railways are the arteries of the na- 
tion. They are the arteries that carry the fabulous profits, made 
up of plunder from the workers’ product, to the most powerful 
bankers and industrialists. 

Contrary to its own rules of procedure, in violation of the 
rules set down by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and in 
total disregard of the United States Supreme Court’s ruling the 
Railway Labor Board admitted evidence by the following big 
employers’ associations in the hearings for the last wage cuts: 
The National Industrial Conference Board of New York; The 
National Industrial Traffic League representing the big shippers, 
lumber, coal, iron, steel, etc.; The Railway Business Association 
of Philadelphia; the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association. 

The labor organizations did not have an opportunity to 
refute this testimony which was given secretly. 

During the strike the railways organized campaigns of slan- 
der and mob violence against the workers. At Fairview, Mo., 
the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad organized a Business 
Men’s Protective Association to drive the union men out as can 
be seen from the following despatch from Labor. 


“Efforts to incite mob violence against striking 
employees of the Missouri and North Arkansas Rail- 
road nearly culminated in the burning alive of two men 
who were unjustly accused of having set fire to a bridge 
near Fairview, Mo. Cooler counsel prevailed and the 
mob abandoned its intention of cremating the strikers 
on the timbers of the doomed structure. 

“Later, Denton Pierce, a striker, was arrested at 
Eureka Springs, Arkansas, on a charge of incendiarism 
and held for officers of Harrison. When the latter ar- 
rived they were members of the so-called Protective 


258 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


League, without any legal warrant, and the authorities 
of Eureka Springs freed Pierce. 

“Pierce, on advice of his attorney, then went to 
Neosho, Mo., and surrendered to the prosecuting at- 
torney, to whom he proved his innocence and was again 
released. 

“The strikers claim that engine No. 34, when it 
left Harrison, Ark., was dropping fire from its firebox 
and that two fires had been started by it before it 
reached the bridge near Fairview. It is said by pas- 
sengers on the train carried by this engine that it was 
solely responsible for the destruction of the bridge. 

“Notwithstanding, business men of Harrison raised 
a reward of $1,000 for the capture of the ‘incendiaries’ 
and are making threats of heavy punishment for the 
guilty if they are detected. 

“Receiver J. C. Murray has recruited some business 
men friendly to the road and whatever following they 
can command into self-styled ‘protective associations’, 
who hold frequent meetings and listen to violent and 
abusive language addressed to the strikers. 

“Last year a so-called protective association drove 
grand officers of the railway men’s organizations out of 
Harrison, and it is believed to be their purpose to make 
it so uncomfortable for the strikers and their leaders 
that they will be forced to leave the community. . .”8) 


Since then, the agents of these employers hanged a striker 


named E. C. Gregor. 


The railway capitalists have also resorted to bribery and 
company unionism. Pursuing this policy the Southern Rail- 
way Company has offered clerks who worked during the strike 
preferred stock and “distinguished service badges.” 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad, sixteen railway companies total- 
ling a mileage of 55,916 have signed agreements with their own 
“unions” whereby the latter waive their right to strike and are 


8) “Labor,” July 1, 1922. 


Exclusive 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS 


259 


subject to the bonuses and treats of their generous employers. 

At the head of the organizations leading the attack on the 
railroad workers was the United States Chamber of Commerce. 
In its bulletin “National Problems and the National Chamber” 


the effect of its anti-strike activities is thus portrayed: 


“Following the call of President Defrees, the local 
chambers of commerce thruout the country immediately 
took the lead toward maintaining national life in their 
communities. i 

“The fact that these organizations, federated into 
one national group, had, as determined by their own 
votes, a definite position in this controversy, gave the 
statements of President Defrees authority sufficient to 
carry them broadcast in the press. 

“This immediate and decisive statement of the at- 
titude of organized business had much to do with the 
formation of the public opinion which was the impel- 
ling force in calling off the strike.” 


The local associations took their cue from this fountain 


head and waged energetic drives to smash the strike. At Water- 
loo, Iowa, the Rotary Club gave wide circulation to a resolution 


reading in part: 


“We strongly commend your splendid action in 
staying on the job in trying times; you have shown to 
the citizens of Waterloo by so doing that you have faith 
in the Government of the United States, are loyal and 
have the best interests of the city and your home at 
heart. 

“The loyalty of any man to country, home, and 
job, will bring its true reward in prosperous and con- 
tented citizenship. 

“The Waterloo Club recognizes public service 
whenever and however rendered, and stands firmly on 
the side of good government. It desires to express by 
the statements above its hearty approval of the attitude 


260 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


taken by the loyal shopmen of Waterloo. Service 
above self, he profits most who serves most.”9) 


And the Indiana Manufacturers’ Association called upon its 
members to do their bit to break the strike. 


“It might be a splendid investment to make a little 
sacrifice in some of the plants of our members for a 
short time to help out this crisis.” 


The appeal goes on to assure their members that the rail- 
road managers in their districts “will be delighted to confer 
with you.” It is interesting to note that in Iowa the employing 
class speaks of “service” and in Indiana their colleagues speak of 
“splendid investments.” But it is not difficult to explain the dif- 
ference in language. In the one case the business men speak 
of service—to be rendered by the workingmen; in the other case 
they speak of splendid investments—for the capitalists. The 
employers know the language that suits each class best. 


Nor was the Ku Klux Klan to be left behind in the strike- 
breaking activities. In the Lehighton (Pa.) Evening Leader, 
the local tribe inserted the following advertisement: 


“To THE PEOPLE AND STRIKERS OF LEHIGHTON 


“The true American fights for what is right and he 
or she fights fairly. A standard of right set by God 
can alone be changed by God. People cannot change 
this. He who tacitly stands and watches this law of 
ages broken is himself an offender. 

“Sunday night’s exhibition, staged by those people 
of the type which bear the hate of people and animals, 
was to the people of Lehighton a challenge. How many 
have accepted that challenge? What have the people 
in public office done? Nothing. What should have 


9) Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen’s Magazine, 
October 1, 1922, page 15. 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS 


been done was left undone though cowardice. Why has 
not a step been taken to guard against these cowardly 
attempts at murder? ‘The strike committees who are 
directing activities of the strikers are paid by the na- 
tional union. They are fed. Why shouJd they 
worry about work? And the blind fool followers do 
as these ignorant leaders bid them. 

“The Ku Klux Klan is here to protect the lives of 
the innocent people of your town. They are here to 
punish the people who should for the sake of right 
have died in the influenza epidemic in the place of 
some helpful citizens, 


“The Klan is here and by the help of God The 
Klan will stay. 
“(Signed) Ku Klux Klan.” 


261 


The editor of this paper had been ordered by the Klan to 


blame the strikers for dynamiting and wrecks in the railroad 


strikes. 


The editor of the paper was not overawed by the order 


which read: 


Mr. Morthimer: To you the Klan has been a friend. 
It is the wish of every member of the Klan that these 
past relations continue. In a sense, you hold one of the 
most important public offices. You are a member of 
the Rotary Club. You are a man of some apparent in- 
fluence, but in the last analysis, you are like most of 
your townsmen in office—a cowardly jellyfish. You 
have not the real patriotism of a real American to take 
advantage of your office as an editor to denounce the 
actions of the strikers at Lehighton. Therefore, we do 
not request, but we command you under penalty to pub- 
lish the inclosed article in the Lehighton Evening 
Leader of October the third. Place it on the front 
page, top center and double column. If the bill should 
amount to four dollars and thirty-five cents place at the 
bottom of the first column these figures: 4 3 5 $. 


(Signed) Understand, 


262 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Employers’ Associations Wield Tremendous Power 


The employers thru their numerous organizations wield a 
tremendous political power. The Government, the church, the 
press, and social organizations are strongly under their influence, 
guidance and control. 


A. THE CHURCH. 


The churches of America, as elsewhere, boast of their 
preaching the Golden Rule. But the capitalists have established 
the rule of gold in every walk of life, the church not excluded. 
Woe unto the church that wins the wrath of the big employers. 
Churches, like all other organizations, must be financed in or- 
der to live. The churches are dependent upon the employers 
for most of their financial support. In this way the employers 
shape the policies enunciated by many pulpits. 

When the Federal Council of Churches began to investigate 
the living and working conditions of the steel workers, the em- 
ployers served notice on it to keep its hands off. It was told 
in plain terms that it was not the business of the church to 
meddle with things on earth. The capitalists put forward the 
idea that to the church was relegated the domain of heaven. 
A furious protest emanated from the employers’ associations 
at this meddling with such earthly matters as wages and work- 
ing conditions and the Council was threatened with a financial 
boycott. When the Council went ahead and published the In- 
terchurch Report of the Steel Strike of 1919—an indictment of 
the Steel Corporations—all financial support was withdrawn 
from the Council by the employers. | 

Because of its attempt to pry into the labor question the 
Catholic Welfare Council was also subjected to a bitter attack 
by the capitalists. The matter was brought to Pope Pius XI 
who ordered a decree suspending the organization. Finally it 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS 263 


was left to the Sacred Consistorial Congregation of Cardinals 
to reconsider the suspension. 


B. THE SOCIAL RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS. 


In 1920 the Better American Federation of California and 
in 1921 the Pittsburgh Employers’ Association condemned the 
Young Women’s Christian Association for adopting a program 
of social legislation. 

One of the important examples of such a boycott by em- 
ployers’ associations is that of the stand taken in 1922 by the 
Manufacturers’ Association of Ohio against certain social re- 
form organizations for advocating the minimum wage, the shorter 
workday and other ameliorative measures. The organizations thus 
boycotted were: The Ohio Council of Women and Children in 
Industry, the Ohio Institute for Public Efficiency, the National 
Consumers’ League, The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, 
the Young Women’s Christian Association, the Vocational Bu- 
reau of Cincinnati, the Urban League of Columbus, the Ohio 
State University, the Ohio Council for Family Social Work, the 
Columbus Temple Sisterhood, the Industrial Health Conserv- 
ancy Laboratories, the Cleveland Welfare Federation, and the 
Woman’s Trade Union League. The letter of the Manufacturers’ 
Association read: 


“These organizations have all adopted the pro- 
gram of the American Association for Labor Legisla- 
tion, and this program includes the short (and shorter) 
workday, with the 8-hour day as the maximum in all 
employment; minimum wage, old-age pensions, unem- 
ployment compensation or insurance, one day’s rest in 
seven, no night work for women, etc., and the establish- 
ment of the employer’s responsibility for living and 
housing conditions. 

“The organizations which are doing this work 
are largely supported but not directed by you. The 


264 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Y. W. C. A., which was a most worthy and useful body 
as originally conceived, is now—at least in industrial 
centers—a hotbed for socialistic propaganda and legis- 
lative experimentation. Its local bodies are often of- 
ficered by the wives and daughters of business men and 
manufacturers who have never sought to present the 
economic side of social problems to the women folks. 
The libraries and the reading courses and reference 
works are largely made up of socialistic works, and 
the officers will give no hearings to books or speakers 
on the other side. 

“What are you going to do about it? Meetings un- 
der the auspices of the Y. W. C. A. are going on in every 
county and candidates for the legislature are being in- 
terviewed and pledged. You are making the cam- 
paign possible. I have no right to more than tell you 
the facts, but I am going to venture to suggest that un- 
less you approve of these schemes to load industry with 
the maintenance in ‘decent living conditions’, the stand- 
ard being established by the beneficiaries, of all the in- 
efficient, the lazy, the thriftless, and the maimed or de- 
fectives, you might stipulate the purpose for which 
your contributions to these organizations may be used 
and expressly provide that no part of it shall be used 
to promote the passage of legislation or carry on pro- 
paganda for the social service labor program adopted 
by these organizations.” 


The employing class takes all steps posible to prevent the 
workingmen from improving their conditions. Even organiza- 
tions that do not aim to overthrow the capitalist system of ex- 
ploitation and organizations which, in many cases, advocate 
ameliorative measures in order to pacify the workers come un- 
der the ban of the employers. Profit counts first, last, and all 
the time with the exploiters of the workers. 


C. THE PRESS. 


It is not our task here to go into an elaboration of the in- 
tricacies of employing class control of the press. We will 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS 265 


merely cite the strong hold the employers have on the press of 
the country thru advertising. 


Recently the Curtis Publishing Company ride a survey 
of magazine advertising which affords much food for thought. 
In 72 monthly and weekly magazines, farm journals, and wom- 
en’s publications the advertisers spent, in 1921 $95,439,236. Of 
this sum the Saturday Evening Post received $25,404,697; the 
Ladies’ Home Journal, $10,370,829; the Literary Digest, $7,- 
414,518; Pictorial Review, $4,020,235; Country Gentleman, 
$2,356,576; Successful Farming, $1,550,809; Youth’s Compan- 
ion, $263,867; and Today’s Housewife, $230,252. 


From 1915-1921, the employers spent $534,774,481 in such 
monthly and weekly publications. In the hundreds of dailies 
thruout the country many times that sum were spent.’ 


The prevalence of this condition has been shown in 
the following incident pointed out by the Interstate Commerce 
Commission: 


“A new ledger account in the name of the Ameri- 
can Publishing Company was opened by transferring 
$40,300.70 from Tennessee Railroad Association Ac- 
count. Among the charges made to this account was 
an item of $24,750 for the purchase of the bonds of the 
American Publishing Company. This company, it ap- 
pears, owned a newspaper known as the American, 
published in Nashville, the official organ of the rail- 
roads operating in Tennessee. The carrier evidently 
never received repayment of the advances made to this 
newspaper company, since its account was finally 
cleared by charging the balance of $42,633.99 due from 
it to profit and loss.”!)) 


10) New York Times, September 27, 1922. 


11) Hearings Before the Committee on Interstate Commerce U. S. 
Senate, 67th Congress, Ist Session, Pursuant to Senate Resolution 23, 
page 1305. 


266 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Thru such methods the railways have increased their “po- 
verty” and the newspapers have been enabled to plead the case 
of the “poor” capitalists. The railway associations thruout the 
country, particularly in the small industrial towns, used the 
newspapers towards this end—discrediting the workers and ele- 
vating the capitalists. Of course the workers had to pay the 
expense of the campaign in terms of reduced wages and worse 
conditions of employment. 


D. THE GOVERNMENT. 


How the Employers’ Associations dominate the Government 
is thus stated plainly by Samuel Untermyer, the noted lawyer: 


“The splendidly equipped lobbies of the fire and 
casualty companies whose monopolies are in peril and 
of the Prudential and Mutual Life Insurance Compa- 
nies, investigations into whose investments and why 
they prefer Wall Street securities to real estate mort- 
gages are still under way, of profiteering landlords 
and innumerable other powerful interests are on the 
job day and night, and their lying propaganda bureaus 
are being worked overtime to poison the minds of 
honest legislators as they tried to poison the public 
mind last year in order to prevent the (Lockwood) 
committee from continuing.”!?) 


In Washington alone it has been estimated that there are | 
more than two hundred and fifty powerful lobbies. Their in- 
fluence on legislation and legislators are manifold. Their con- 
trol of Government would fill volumes. Hanford Macnider, 
former Commander of the American Legion, pointed out: 


“My attention has just been drawn to the published 
threat of the financial interests of Republican persua- 
sion that if the Republican Congress passes the veter- 


| 12) Samuel Untermyer in New York Times, February 4; 1922, page 1: 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS 267 


ans’ adjusted compensation bill there will be no contri- 
butions from that quarter to the Republican campaign 
funds. 

“In the words of one despatch, Big Business in- 
formed Chairman Adams, of the Republican National 
Committee, that ‘If Congress passes the bonus bill it 
may get some soldier votes for the respective candi- 
dates, but it will lose the support of business.’ 

“The lines are more clearly drawn than ever. On 
one hand we have an element of the business and finan- 
cial interests of the nation, which contributed least 
and profited most by the war. 

“These interests are threatening Congress, flourish- 
ing the political pistol, and a gold-plated one at that. 

“On the other hand we have the men who fought 
for their country presenting their case on its merits, 
confident that they enjoy the nation’s confidence now 
as they did in 1917, and that justice will be done. 

“Whom do the people of the United States wish 


their representatives in Congress to follow?”?) 


The answer to this problem lies in the answer to the ques- 
tion: Who controls the Government? This question was an- 
swered by Harding most affirmatively when he vetoed the Bonus 
measure. The employing class disapproved of it. The Chamber 
of Commerce of the United States said no. And the President 
of the United States did the rest. The Bonus bill died a hor- 
rible death at the hands of the President. And once more the 
pen was mightier than the sword! 

Nor is buying legislatures a capitalist luxury, since the work- 
ers pay the bills as is shown in the following typical incidents 
found by the Interstate Commerce Commission: 

“An account was opened in the name of the Immi- 


gration and Industrial Association of Alabama in Janu- 
ary, 1907. This records cash advance to George W. 


13) Statement of Hanford Macnider, formerly Commander of the 
American Legion Congressional Record, September 20, 1922, page 14,025. 


208 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Jones, assistant district attorney at Montgomery, Ala- 
bama, made under the authority of the first vice-presi- 
dent; $13,068.80 was charged to this account; $7,868.- 
86 was re-collected from other carriers who were parties 
to the association and credited to this account. The 
balance of $5,199.94 remaining was charged to opera- 
ting expenses by authority of the first vice-president. 
The nature of this account is indicated by notations on 
the treasurer’s statements of each receipt entered there- 
in, such as ‘proportion of expenses, account adjourned 
session of Alabama legislature’.’’) 


“Referring to the political contributions of the 
Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway, a subsi- 
diary of the Louisville & Nashville, but operated se- 
parately, the Commission’s report states that while ex- 
penditures aggregating $13,993.73, which were entered 
on the accounts of this carrier, appear to have been for 
the purpose referred to, at the same time the accounts 
do not disclose the purpose of numerous other large ex- 
penditures. Among the accounts was one providing 
entertainments for various State, County, and Muni- 
cipal officials: As to the concealed accounts, the Com- 
mission says that ‘the accounts disclose other disburse- 
ments aggregating $599,668.92, the purposes of which 
are concealed. Of these payments, $233,025.73 was 
collected from other railroad companies.’ These ex- 
penditurgs as to which detail is lacking are discussed 
in the Commission’s report under the headings of ex- 
penditures to prevent the City of Nashville from 
aiding in constructing the Nashville & Clarksville Rail- 
road, now the Tennessee Central.”!5) (Our italics). 


By means of such devices as entertainments, bonuses, and 


14) Quoted from Findings of the Interstate Commerce Commission by 
Frank Julian Warne in Hearings Before the Committee on Interstate Com- 
merce, United States Senate, 67th Congress, lst Session, Pursuant to 
Senate Resolution 23, page 1304. 


15) Ibid, Testimony by Frank Julian Warne, page 1,305. 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS 269 


miscellaneous gifts the legislators are turned into outright lackeys 
of the employers. 

The great control these employers’ organizations have over 
officials was evidenced in the last railway strike. The workers 
agreed to a settlement proposal of the President who was then 
to seek its approval by the Association of Railway Executives. 
But here we stop. What happened is forcefully brought home 
in the following statement of the Big Four Railroad Brotherhoods 
on this situation: 


“The President said he was unable to put his ori- 
ginal proposal over, but that he was to meet a com- 
mittee from the Railway Executives’ Association with 
Mr. T. DeWitt Cuyler as Chairman as soon as our meet- 
ing was over. We argued and pleaded with the Presi- 
dent, as above indicated, without results. We remained 
with him until the committee representing the railroads 
arrived, when we retired, with the understanding that 
he (the President) would advise us further after his 
meeting with the railroad executives. This same eve- 
ning we were advised that he had not been successful 
in inducing the railroad Presidents to change their po- 
sition, that they were willing to send the shopmen’s 
rules and working conditions back to the Labor Board, 
but they positively refused to restore seniority to men 
on strike.”!° 


The President not only meekly yielded to the orders of the 
railway employers’ association, but he subsequently led the of- 
fensive against the workers. And this despite the fact that the 
workers accepted his settlement terms and the employers turned 
them down! It is always this way. The Government protects 
the capitalist organizations but persecutes the workers. 





16) From Statement by Railway Brotherhood Grand Chiefs, August 
30, 1922, in Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen’s Ma 
gazine, September 15, 1922, page 14. 


270 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Should any government official be especially vicious in his 
persecution of workingmen the employers run to his aid. The 
notorious Pat Hamrock, of Colorado, illegally deported the well- 
known labor leader William Z. Foster from the State. Many 
liberals condemned this act. This led to a plea of solidarity 
from the bankers. Said Mr. W. H. Hoover, President of the 
United States National Bank, Denver, addressing himself to 
Pat Hamrock: 


“T want you to know that the good citizens of the 
community are behind you in your efforts directed to 
law enforcement, and should you be called upon to 
incur any expenses in defending the threatened suit 
referred to in the news columns of our newspapers 
a few days ago, we will be ready to render you our 
aid and financial assistance.”!” 


This is a message of encouragement to Pat Hamrock to 
spare no laws in his drive against the workers. It is a pledge 
to help him against the threatened suit of the Civil Liberties 
Union for his violation of numerous laws in hounding Wm. Z. 
Foster. 


Conclusion. 


The employers’ associations are an integral part of the 
gigantic machine that the capitalist class controls—the State. 
This machine is an instrument in the hands of the employing 
class to oppress the workers and perpetuate the existing order 
of exploitation. 

In his discussion on the purchase of the Senatorial seat by 
Newberry, Senator Norris of Nebraska declared: 


“We have come to a time now when you have to 
show your colors and obey the command, or in some 


17) The Denver Express, August 28, 1922. 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS 271 


future election you will find yourself without friends 
and without money.” 


The late Franklin K. Lane, formerly Secretary of the In- 
terior, published a book containing his letters to men in public 
life. In one of these we are presented with a picture of the 
relations between business interests and Government. This let- 
ter is written to a friend in California. 


“The thing I find that hangs over all Presidents 
and other public men here in Washington to terrify 
them is the fear of bad times. 

“These people undoubtedly have the power to 
bring on panics whenever they want to and to depress 
business, and they will exercise that power as against 
any administration that does not play their game. 

“The ‘Money Power’, as we used to call it, allows 
the President a certain scope—a field within which it 
may move. But if it goes outside that field and follows 
policies or demands measures which interfere with the 
game as played by the high financiers, they do not 
hegitate to use their big stick, which is the threat of 
business depression.” 


These employers’ associations always pose as the representa- 
tives of the “public”, as seen from the following announcement 
sent broadcast by the United States Chamber of Commerce. 


“In a controversy between shippers and railroads 
and between employees and railroads, this agency 
would have a duty to bring in considerations of gen- 
eral public policy.” 


Behind this screen the employers hide many of their crimes 
against the workingmen. 

During the war the United States Chamber of Commerce, 
leader of the Employers’ Associations of the country, organized 
itself into numerous committees to handle war contracts and to 


272 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


assume actual Governmental powers. At the head of these com- 
mittees were placed “dollar-a-year” men. Thru this network of 
committees which has served as a model for ail employers’ or- 
ganizations the United States Chamber of Commerce secured 
3014 contracts for shells, etc. totalling nearly four billion dol- 
lars and contracts for constructing powder plants, manufacturing 
nitrate gas, powder, etc., amounting to $311,000,000. 


Besides these business committees that determined the Gov- 
ernment’s policies there were also organized committees on the 
suppression of free speech, the election of representatives to 
State and National bodies, on banking, water power, highways, 
and also card-indexing every one who has ever spoken or acted 
against the employing interests. 

In the preparations for the new drive against the working- 


men, the Employers’ Associations are resorting to the old 
method of dividing the workers before attacking them. This is 
one of the outstanding aims of their agitation against foreign- 
born workers. The employers want to divide the workers along 
national lines in order to break their class solidarity. This is 
the basis for the proposal of the New York State Chamber of 
Commerce for finger-printing all residents and instituting a 
general registration system. The declared aim of this measure 
is to check “undesirables” and to “uphold the laws.” In practice 
it would serve as a means of facilitating the persecution of work- 
ers who dare to protest against the tyranny of the employing 
class. 


In getting ready for the coming great struggle with the 
employing class the workers must be prepared to face the pow- 
erful array of forces marshalled in the employers’ associations 
as well as the Governmental forces of oppression controlled by 
the capitalist class. The workers should not fail to recognize 
that these Associations, speaking for the “public”, are only fight- 


THE EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS 273 


ing for the profits of the employers; that they are only auxiliary 
organizations to help the Government act as a strikebreaker. 

These Employers’ Associations are extra-governmental po- 
litical organizations regardless of the name they mask under. 
They are a mighty force controlling newspapers, schools, le- 
oislatures, churches, and numerous other agencies for moulding 
opinion against the workingmen struggling for more decent 
living and employment conditions. 

The Chambers of Commerce, the Rotary Clubs, the Kiwanis 
Clubs, the Trade Boards, the Manufacturers’ and Commercial 
Associations are the sworn enemies of the working class. The 
workers must treat them as dangerous implacable foes. 


CHAPTER XI. 
THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 


QO of the powerful allies of the employers in their offensive 
against the workers is the press. The newspapers of Amer- 
ica: wield a tremendous influence. They drive men out of public 
life. They veritably lynch some when it behooves their masters. 
They defy others when the situation demands it. The newspa- 
pers try court cases and make men innocent or guilty. Thru 
the outright ownership of the newspapers, by advertising sub- 
sidies, the employers completely control our sources of news. 
In the class war the newspapers serve as the advanced sales 
agents of the employers. They make “moral” or “legal” the 
demands of the capitalists and condemn the demands of the work- 
ers. Truth is at their mercy. In the “grand offensive” against 
the workers and the campaign of resistance waged by the work- 
ing class the newspapers thruout the country loyally served the 
interests of the employing class. 

What the concentrated control of the press means has been 
lucidly stated by A. G. Gardiner in his discussion of the news- 
paper situation in England. Mr. Gardiner is one of the best 
known English editors and in his recent article “The Control 
of the British Press” he described the English conditions as 
follows: 


“The following six men own practically every 
great popular paper in the country—every paper with 
a circulation of a million or more: Lord Rothermere, 
Sir Edward Hulton, Lord Dalziel, Sir William Berry, 
Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Riddell. 

2714 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 275 


“They send out from London every week-end ten 
million weekly papers—roughly, a paper into every 
household in the country. Their control of the daily 
press is no less overwhelming. 

“They supply us with the news they please and 
keep from us the news they please, and make us believe 
what they want us to believe. 

“And when we ask who they are who wield this 
enormous pgwer over us, by what authority they exer- 
cise it, what they have done to justify confidence in 
their judgment, there is nothing to say, for they have 
done nothing. , 

“Not one of them has a name which has any sig- 
nificance for the public or stands for any idea except 


the money power. 
“They are powerful only because they have ap- 
plied the Big Business instinct to the press.” 


We need but look at Wallace’s Farmer—the official or- 
gan of the Secretary of Agriculture Wallace for an American 
picture of the above conditions. This paper is heavily subsidized 
by millionaire advertisers. In turn Mr. Wallace wages an ener- 
getic campaign and conducts a vicious propaganda against the 
workers, and paints the bankers and grain elevator owners as 
the friends and saviors of the farmers. 


The Press—A Servant of the Employing Class. 


Instances of suppressing news and telling half truths and 
no-truths are legion in the history of American newspaperdom. 
We will limit ourselves only to outstanding instances of the 
recent labor struggles and to cases fundamentally involved in 
the conditions making for the recent strike wave. Said Mr. 
Frank Julian Warne before the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
sion: 

“Let me briefly call your attention to only a few as 
disclosed in official investigations of the Interstate Com- 
merce Commission. 


276 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“I refer, first, to the expenditure of $53,000 by the 
Louisville & Nashville ‘in a publicity campaign in Ala- 
bama in the endeavor to mold public opinion thru the 
medium of the press’; to other expenditures by the same 
road ‘to finance a campaign in Louisiana to prevent 
the change of tax laws’; the expenditure of at least 
$120,198 in Tennessee for the purpose of combatting 
legislation in that State; the expenditure of $43,000, 
of which $24,750 was invested in bonds, on account 
of the American Publishing Company, publisher of the 
Nashville American. Reference has been made to a 
director of the Erie Railroad who was also a stockhol- 
der in the Journal of Commerce and the Commercial 
Bulletin. I also refer to the investment of the New 
York, New Haven & Hartford of some $400,000 in a 


Boston newspaper. 


“The facts disclosed by the Interstate Commerce — 


Commission (6569, I. C. C., 34) in regard to this New 
Haven publicity situation clearly shows how public 
opinion was distorted; how newspapers that could be 
subsidized were subsidized; how a college professor 
and publicist secretly accepted money from the New 
Haven, while masking as a representative of a great 
American University and as the guardian of the inter- 
ests of the people; how agencies of information to the 
public were prostituted wherever they could be pros- 
tituted.” 


Mr. Frank Julian Warne proceeds to quote from 


the 


findings of the Interstate Commerce Commission regarding the 
New Haven dealings: 


“The unwarranted expenditure of large amounts in 
‘educating public opinion.’ 

“The disposition without knowledge of the direct- 
ors, of hundreds of thousands of dollars for influenc- 
ing public sentiment. 


“The habitual payment of unitemized vouchers 
without any clear specification of details. 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 277 


“Attempts to control utterances of the press by 
subsidizing reporters. 

“Attempts to stem the tide of adverse popular 
opinion. 

““Education’ of the public upon economic issues 
such as are here in question is not any part of the pro- 
vince of a corporation, says the commission, and it 
adds further that such ‘educational’ use of corporate 
funds is ‘a gross injustice to the stockholders and the 


ree | 


public’. 
Then Mr. Warne goes on to say: 


“Those of you who read the daily newspapers re- 
gularly, as most of us do, can not have failed to notice 
the large number of ‘inspired’ news articles and edi- 
torials recently, and especially in financial publica- 
tions, on the subject of the dire straits the railroads 
are in because their present operating income does not 
produce six per cent on their property investment. 

“The present widespread and expensive publicity 
methods of the railroads to mislead the public on the 
situation with regard to their property investment ac- 
count and their operating income is nothing new, but 
is merely a continuation of the sinister methods they 
have employed in the past to misdirect public opinion 
in the rate cases before the Interstate Commerce Com- 
mission. So insidious and harmful were these methods 
that this Federal Commission felt constrained to de- 
nounce that ‘campaign of publicity’ on the part of the 
railroads in no unmeasured terms. . .”?) 


How this policy pays the corporation is clear from the 
following incident. In January 1922, the Interstate Commerce 
Commission placed a valuation of $45,051,000 on the property 
of the New York, Ontario and Western Railroad. This Com- 
pany had claimed a “capital investment” of $85,101,000. It 


1) Hearings Before Senate Commission on Interstate Commerce, Pur- 
suant to Senate Resolution No. 23, 67th Congress, Ist Session, Vol. III, 
pages 1285-1287. 


278 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


had issued stocks and bonds to the sum of $98,091,000 par value. 
It is evident, therefore, that over 50 per cent. of the corporation’s 
securities was watered stock pure and simple. And it was on 
such stock that the company was pleading for a six per cent. 
profit rate. 

The farmers have been particularly insistent in their de- 
mand for lowered freight rates. But our press has hidden from 
the farmers the fact that the railways are demanding high profit 
rates on fictitious capital. The Chicago Tribune, having a large 
circulation amongst the farmers of the middle west, treated this 
report of the Commission in the following typical newspaper 
manner: 

“A tentative value of the New York, Ontario and 

Western Railroad of $45,051,000 was found today by 

the Interstate Commerce Commission. This covers 


the property used by the road in its transportation 
operations, whether owned by it or not.” 


This newspaper did not say a word to the farmers about 
the fact that the case of the New York, Ontario and Western 
Railroad was a typical case of highly watered stock upon which 
huge freight rates are paid. The Chicago Tribune completely 
hid from its readers the fact that the railway company had sought 
to receive six per cent. profit on $53,000,000 non-existent ca- 
pital. 

The Washington newspaper Labor in its issue of March 
18, 1922, presents the results of an investigation it had made 
of the following newspapers: The New York Times, Herald, 
American and Sun; The Washington Star and Post; the Phila- 
delphia Public Ledger; the Pittsburgh Dispatch; and the Chi- 
cago Tribune. The object of the survey was to find out what 
news these papers considered as “fit to print” or of sufficient im- 
portance to their readers. The summary of the test follows in 
part: 


THE PRESS: DOES ITS BIT 


“On Tuesday, February 1, Senator Cummins, of 
Iowa, made a speech in the Senate exposing the attempt 
of the railroads to induce the Interstate Commerce Com- 
mission to value their land holdings at 2, 3, or 4 times 
the value of adjoining land. This would mean an in- 
crease in the value of the roads of from 2 to 6 billion 
dollars. Capitalized at six per cent, it would add from 
120 million to 360 million dollars to the yearly profits 
which the roads would be entitled to collect from the 
shippers. 

“That's more than we can possibly hope to save 
thru the limitation of naval armament agreed to at the 
Washington Conference. 

“Labor regarded that story as of national inter- 
est, but not one of the nine papers examined devoted a 
liné to it. 

“On the same date, Congressman Davis, of Ten- 
nessee, and Congressman Hardy, of Texas, addressed 
the House denouncing the Shipping Board’s plan to 
sell our Merchant Marine at bargain-counter prices. 
Congressman Hardy, one of the oldest and most con- 
servative members of the House, described the affair 
as the ‘boldest steal ever perpetrated in the history of 
the United States.’ 

“According to Labor’s standards, that story was 
worth a ‘first page display’ but, only one of the nine 
papers examined noticed it. 

“On Monday, February 20, Senator Tom Hefflin, 
of Alabama, addressing the Senate, attempted to fix 
responsibility for the policy of deflation which has de- 
stroyed 50 billion dollars in this country in less than 
two years. He called attention to the fact that on May 
17, 1920, the Senate had adopted an innocent looking 
resolution presented by Senator Medill McCormick. 
and he declared that this resolution had been accepted 
by the Federal Reserve Board as an invitation to put the 
screw to business and deflate prices. 


“The historical value of this resolution cannot be 
easily overestimated. It purported to mark the exact 


279 


280 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


moment when certain interests launched a movement 
which resulted in the impoverishment of tens of thous- 
ands of farmers, industrial workers and small business 
men. 

“None of the nine papers examined, however, re- 
carded it of sufficient importance to devote a paragraph 
to it. 

“It is certain that when these three events were 
transpiring the newspapers referred to were represented 
in the press gallery, either by their own special cor- 
respondent or by a representative of one of the news 
gathering agencies, 

“Why did they fail to print these stories? 

“We believe there is no escaping the conclusion 
that this important information was kept from the peo- 
ple, because the interests that controlled the newspapers 
did not want it printed.” 


When class interests are involved the newspapers drop their 
formal filmy political differences and line up solidly to protect 
the interests of the employers who control them. This was the 
case in the 1922 Senatorial contest in North Dakota. Anent this, 
Mr. H. P. Paulson, managing editor of the Fargo Forum, lead- 
ing Republican newspaper of North Dakota, thus declared in an 


6 


interview: 


“Every Republican daily newspaper in North 
Dakota, including the Bismarck Tribune, the only paper 
that supported McCumber, is urging the election of 
Mr. O’Connor.””?) 


Nor do our papers limit themselves to suppressing and falsi- 
fying news regarding the struggles of the workers at home. They 
follow the same policy regarding the conflicts between the em- 
ploying class and the working class abroad. When the German 
railway workers struck in the early months of 1922, the Ameri- 


2) N. Y. Times, November 4, 1922. 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 281 


can newspapers reported a complete defeat for the workers. The 
result of the strike was entirely different. The workers were 
eranted their 20% wage increase and the union treasuries con- 
fiscated by the Socialist Ebert, were returned. But the American 
newspapers thought it inadvisable for our workers to learn of 
this victory of their German brothers. We were therefore told 
that the railway workers in Germany received a disastrous de- 
feat at the hands of their employers. 


Preparing the Grand Offensive 


This is how the employers of Seattle advanced their open 
shop campaign. Their official admission reads: 


“The display advertising—some fifteen full pages 
and many smaller spaces in all three newspapers— 
was resorted to, not from inability to get full publicity 
in the news columns, but from the desire to attract 
public attention forcibly and crystallize public opinion 
quickly, by striking publicity, overwhelming in its 
volume. The purpose and the expense were justified by 
the result.”?) 


In the following editorial excerpts of some of our leading 
papers, we are presented with a series of pictures in “moulding 
public opinion” in behalf of the employers and against the 
workers. 

N. Y. TIMES, DECEMBER 8, 1921 


“Intelligent American workmen have begun to 
realize that ‘collective bargaining by representatives of 
their own choosing’ far too often means needless loss of 
time and wages. It is generally the power-loving, graft- 
loving ‘representative’ who ‘collects’. That is why even 
union men welcome employee representation as they 
have done in the packing industry and on the Penn- 


3) “The American Plan,” Associated Industries of Seattle, Page 3. 


282 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


sylvania Railroad. And that is why, in time, union 
leaders have, in both cases, declared strikes against this 
new and more salutary form of collective bargaining. 
In a recent statement Mr. Atterbury said that two groups 
of employees of the Pennsylvania had ‘selected solid 
union committees’ to represent them in the industrial 
congress and that these union men had ‘agreed upon’ 
permanent methods of settling all ‘grievances’ without 


calling in the old line union ‘bargainers’.” 


The press also pursued a vigorous campaign for wage cuts 
and the open shop. Commenting on the report written by Noel 
Sargent on “The Economics of the Open Shop,” The New York 
Times editorially said, that this investigation | 


“has proved that union leadership as it exists today is 
grossly incompetent in protecting the true interests of 
the workmen and flagrantly antagonistic to the welfare 
of the nation as a whole. Past gains have been made by 
fighting and could not have been otherwise achieved; 
but to cope with the present conditions new tactics are 
requisite,’”) 


These are the methods pursued by the metropolitan press 
in undermining the confidence of the workers even in conservative 
trade unions and in agitating for such court decisions as rend- 
ered by the Supreme Court in the Coronado case. 

And Christy Thomas describing the benefits of the Open Shop 
in Seattle in the Review of Reviews for November 1920, said: 


“A practical result of the new condition in 
Seattle is that thousands of union men and non-union 
men have buried their differences and are working side 
by side in peace in the city’s manufacturing plants. I 
am convinced from recent talks from both employers, 
and the workers there, that the labor situation as a 


4) Quoted by “The Open Shop Encyclopedia”, page 86—prepared by 
the Open Shop Dept. of the National Ass’n of M’frs. 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 


whole is constantly improving. In a number of large 
industries, where only union men are employed, no 
hint of trouble between the men and their employers is 
found. Labor, in these cases, is showing not only a de- 
sire to keep at work, but is co-operating towards the 
common goal—increased production. It is because of 
this that capital has become more lenient toward labor, 
which is now rapidly regaining much of its old line 
efficiency.” 


The Press Welcomes Labor Treason. 


A. N. Y. SUN, OCTOBER 25, 1922. 


“With expressions of gratitude to the employees 
who stayed at their job during the recent strike of shop- 
men, the Southern Railway includes tangible evidence 
of its appreciation. To every such employee it offers 
$350 either in cash or preferred stock of the road. 

“These men made sacrifices in order to serve their 
employers in their emergency. Many doubtless lost 
friends among their fellows who went on strike. They 
worked when the other group considered that the shop- 
man who did not strike was their enemy. 

“Loyalty to the job is a thing our great corpora- 
tions are learning gradually to attain. In proving that 
they mark and appreciate the true man, they will rouse 
in men the instinct to be true. The honor and the mark 
of appreciation form the biggest part of this reward, 
substantial as it is. 

“Nor can work be measured readily in terms of 
dollars and cents. A man heartily cooperating with the 
institution he serves gives much above the minimum 
of tangible accomplishment on which his job depends.” 


B. N. Y. EVENING POST, OCTOBER 16, 1922. 


“In labor unions, as in al] other institutions, con- 
servative and radical ideas continually do battle. Less 
than two months ago, the country shivered at the thought 
that the four great brotherhoods might seek to save the 


283 


284 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


striking shopmen’s cause by following the syndicalist’s 
advice of W. Z. Foster, ‘Federate’. But the brother- 
hoods, while using their good offices in behalf of their 
fellow workers, refused to be drawn into the conflict. 
Now, by decentralizing in regard to wages, rules, and 
working agreements, organized railway labor has given 
a flat and final negative to the radical proposals. 


“Mr. Lee of the trainmen, who long ago earned the 
right to be considered a labor statesman of the first 
rank, is spokesman for the new dispensation. His words 
show that the leaders of railway labor learned certain 
lessons from the shopmen’s strike. The most important 
of them is, that a national transportation strike consti- 
tutes so serious a menace to the country, that Govern- 
ment must intervene. ‘No sane government,’ he said, 
‘would permit any faction or class to paralyze the trans- 
portation business of the country. The only way out 
was to separate.’ This does not mean acquiescence to 
things as they are, but rather return to the successful 
strategy of the days before the Adamson law. Hence- 
forth the methods that made the Brotherhoods dominant 
and beneficial to their members, are to be followed. 
Pressure will be exerted sectionally instead of national- 
ly. There will be no threat of another nation-wide rail 
strike as long as the present leaders are in control. 


“From the point of view both of labor strategy 
and the growth of a better feeling between carriers and 
unions, we welcome the new tendency to settle disputes 
as they arise, sectionally and by organizations, instead 
of resorting to the Labor Board, as a court of first in- 
stance. The Labor Board’s undeniably useful functions 
should be those of a court of appeal. 

“The advantage to Labor is apparent. Instead of 
confronting the police power of the nation and an 
aroused public opinion, railway labor can now attack 
in detail when and where it has a case and conference 
fails to adjust the differences. Moreover, the business 
community, in the altered situation, will more and more 
come to recognize the long standing truth that conserv- 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 285 


ative, intelligently led Labor Unions are safeguards 
of industrial and social progress and buttresses against 
radicalism and Social Revolution. The attempt to Fed- 
eralize railway labor has failed; likewise the attempt 
upon the part of certain railway leaders to break the 
unions, has failed. A path has been cleared for sane 
evolution in the labor relations of a basic industry.” 


The Press Preaches Employing-Class Solidarity 
at Herrin. 


In its issue of October 1922, the Illinois Journal of Com- 
merce, official organ of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, pub- 
lishes a digest of press comment on its campaign to raise a fund 
for the prosecution of the Miners at Herrin. Among the quota- 
tions, we find the following press comment: 


A. MILWAUKEE SENTINEL. 


“The Herrin Mine Riots, it is now definitely estab- 
lished, will not be permitted to remain uninvestigated. 
The press of the whole country has been insistent in 
its demand for an inquiry, and it is to the credit of the 
state of Illinois, that its own citizens have taken a lead- 
ing part in the movement... . 

“In view of the concerted refusal to let the memory 
of the murders ‘glow over’ and bury sanguinary in- 
cident in silence, it cannot properly be charged that the 
state of Illinois as a whole is any longer on trial. With 
the calling of a grand jury, the responsibility is nar- 
rowed down to the county which was the scene of the 
outrages.” 

B. MARION STAR. 


“It is refreshing to know that investigation is to be 
a sincere effort to ferret out the guilty and not a white- 
washed affair.” 


This is the open expression of President Harding’s private 
official organ. 


286 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Cc. THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR. 


“Believers in law and order the United States over, 
will be encouraged and gratified to know that steps 
have been taken by Illinois authorities to reach and 
punish the perpetrators of the Herrin massacre. Cer- 
tainly there should be prompt and liberal response. . .” 


D. GRAND RAPIDS NEWS. 


“Justice handcuffed because of a lack of money! 
It doesn’t sound quite right. But it is gratifying to see 
the business men of Illinois awaken to the fact that this 
crime must be investigated and the guilty persons 
punished. Because the murdering was done wholesale, 
is no reason it should continue to go unnoticed by the 
authorities as it has.” 


E. OKLAHOMA CITY OKLAHOMAN. 


“It is a poor commentary on ‘justice in Illinois 
that it is necessary to raise private funds to bring about 
the proper handling of such an outrage as that at 
Herrin. But, in as much as it appears nothing definite 
will be achieved otherwise, the Illinois Chamber of 
Commerce is doing the right thing in getting behind the 
prosecuting officers and stirring them up to action... . 

“The Herrin Massacre was a crime which was 
heard around the world and which probably raised in 
the minds of many foreigners a doubt as to whether 
there is, after all, in the United States, the boasted 
freedom guaranteed by the American Constitution. 

“Every person who participated in the Herrin Mas- 
sacre should be punished—not only those who did the 
killing, but those, also, who planned and directed the 
conspiracy.” 


And when the New York World learned of the pledge of 
President Frank Farrington of the Illinois miners to support 
the workers on trial, it said in its issue of September 1: © 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 287 


“This is a dangerous doctrine for a union leader to 
preach—more dangerous to unionism than to the pub- 
lic. For it ranges unionism on the side of violence and 
crime and against the forces of the law. It amounts 
to an attempt to make membership in the miners’ union 
the sole issue in the Herrin case, regardless of evidence. 
It comes very near putting the union in the position of 
sheltering murderers if they happen to be members. 

“No enemy of the miner’s union could have placed 
it in a worse light before the public than President Far- 
rington has done by his reckless utterance.” 


This “reckless utterance” was in part as follows: “The very 
magnitude of the agitation which was nationwide in connection 
with this trouble, jeopardizes the lives and freedom of innocent 
men and makes it necessary that the state organization furnish 
every possible means of defence for our members, and that we 
shall do.” The crime of the workers in Herrin was self-defense. 
The crime of President Farrington is that he has pledged the 
resources of the miners to defend their brothers. 


F. VISALIA (CALIFORNIA) TIMES. 


“It seems strange that the Illinois Chamber of Com- 
merce should find it necessary to raise funds to finance 
the prosecution of the Herrin offenders. The govern- 
ment of Illinois is not bankrupt, so far as is known. 
Neither is there any lack of judicial machinery to meet 
any demands growing out of the Herrin incident. 

“Just why months have been permitted to pass 
with the Herrin murderers still at large, why it should 
be necessary for the President of the Nation to inter- 
vene in the affair, and why a prosecutor is obtained 
from outside of the state are some of the things that are 
certain to make American citizens do some wondering. 
It may be that eventually the government of Illinois 
will deem it expedient to clear up these puzzling feat- 
ures of the case.” 


288 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


G. N. Y. TRIBUNE. 


“It is nearly two months since members of the 
Herrin mob tortured and killed in cold blood men who 
have taken the places of strikers in working the strip 
coal mines. A coroner’s jury in an extraordinary find- 
ing, blamed chiefly the mine superintendent who was 
shot down. Not an arrest has been made. Williamson 
County officials have made no apparent effort to bring 
anybody to justice, although it must be notorious in the 
vicinity, who were the ringleaders of the lynching. The 
Attorney General of one of the wealthiest states in the 
Union, has not enough at his disposal to detect and 
prosecute the criminals! 

“Tt is no wonder that leading citizens of Illinois 
have come forward asking all business men of the state, 
to contribute to the utmost ‘in order to prove to the 
world that justice still reigns and human life is safe 
in Illinois.’ ahs 

“In the appeal of the Illinois Chamber of Com- 
merce for funds to enable the state’s Attorney General 
to make a real investigation, there is welcome evidence 
of determination to fasten on the murderers the guilt 
of the Herrin massacre.” 


H. EVENING POST (CHICAGO). 


“We owe to the Illinois Chamber of Commerce 
a debt of gratitude for giving us the leadership and the 
opportunity which makes it possible for the people of 
the state to prove that they are not indifferent to law- 
lessness; that wholesale murder is not tolerated; that 
there is a public sentiment and a force for decency in 
Illinois which refuses to take the Herrin Challenge 
lying down.” 


I. CHICAGO—JOURNAL OF COMMERCE 


“, . « This is not time for superficial action, no time 


for a cursory examination which may lead to a few in- 
dictments. There should be money enough in the Herrin 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 289 


prosecution fund, to enable the arm of justice to reach 
out to the furthest extent. 


“The fund campaign has been put under the direc- 
tion of representative business and professional men. 
Every man named by the Illinois Chamber of Com- 
merce has the confidence of his neighbors.” 


J. THE ST, LOUIS GLOBE DEMOCRAT. 


“One of the most American of movements.” 


K. THE DALLAS JOURNAL. 


“A fine example of civic interest.” 


L. THE BANGOR (MAINE) COMMERCIAL. 


“At last there is promise of action.” 


And when the special grand jury returned 214 indictments 
against the workers, the press applauded. We cite the findings 
of the Literary Digest for October 14, 1922. 


Richmond Times Dispatch—‘“No lack of courage 
or sense of duty.” 


New Haven Journal Courier—“The law of the 
land takes on a new dignity, and America is still Ameri- 
ca. To Delos Duty—splendid name—state’s attorney 
of Williamson County, to the Attorney General of Illin- 
ois, and to the members of the Grand Jury, men and 
women of every state, wave thanks and appreciation. 
The flag lifts its drooping folds.” 


Philadelphia Evening Bulletin—‘“A public which 
continues to tolerate strikes as a means of settling in- 
dustrial disputes, knowing that in greater or less degree, 
they are provocative of violence, that the murderers of 
Herrin differ only in their massing from murders com- 
mitted in the name of labor every year in the rancor 
of strike struggles—the public which continues to wink 
at strikes, must accept partial responsibility. It can 


290 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


vindicate itself only by a declaration and determina- 
tion that the strike shall be considered as an anachron- 
ism in present civilization, and that it shall no longer 
be tolerated. Punishing the violence at Herrin is super- 
ficial treatment.” 

N. Y. Times, Sept. 25, 1922.—“The findings and 
presentment of the Illinois Grand Jury, after its thor- 
ough investigation of the Herrin Massacre, ought to 
be thought of as ‘duty reading’ by all Americans. Here 
they will find set down, as determined after hearing 
hundreds of witnesses, the causes, origin and successive 
steps of as lawless and bloody an affair as ever dis- 
eraced the annals of any country... . 

“If the narrative thus officially set forth is enough 
to shame and sicken Americans, they may at least have 
the consolation of knowing that a fearless judge and 
a resolute grand jury have done their best to uncover 
this awful crime and to punish the criminals.” 


The Textile Strike 


We have seen how miserably paid the textile workers are. 
We have seen the wretched living conditions forced upon them 
by their employers. But the press waged an energetic campaign 
of propaganda, misinforming the mass of readers as to the 
actual conditions of the textile workers. 


A. THE LOWELL COURIER CITIZEN 


“During the war textile wages went up by leaps 
and bounds to meet the necessities of the war condi- 
tion. The result of it all was a textile wage scale here 
that was something like 150% of increase over pre-war 
conditions. Since the war ended, the ‘deflation’ of wage 
scales has proceeded but slowly. 

“The wage scale obviously cannot continue at its 
highest levels if the local textile mills expect to be 
able to compete with other textile centers, particularly 
those in the South. It seems the part of better judgment 
to get orders, keep the mills running and have more 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 291 


and more people employed, even at lower pay, in- 
stead of forcing short hours, limited employment and 
steady loss of business by holding up the wage scale 
at a prohibitive figure. 


“The wage earner is entitled to his proper pro- 

- portion in the costs, but he also is interested, just as any 

business man is interested, in doing business at as good 

a price as he can—and still get the business. That 
appears to be the whole matter in a nutshell.” 


B. THE SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN 


“High wages cannot be maintained, with foreign 
markets half dead and agriculture prostrated. For the 
farming population of the United States accounts for 
a large share of the industrial output.” 


C. BROOKLYN CITIZEN 


“Economic conditions furnish a good warrant to 
the textile mill owners for their action. It is impossible 
for them to keep wages and hours of labor up to the 
level of prosperous times in the most severe trade crisis 
the country, perhaps, has ever experienced.”®) 


The following statement sent in a letter to unions and local 
affiliations by Sara A. Conboy, International Secretary of the 
United Textile Workers of America, throws further light on the 
role of the press in the Textile strike: 


“The capitalistic press of this country is spreading 
untruthful propaganda, that the New England textile 
strikes are settled. 

“This propaganda is for the express purpose of 
cutting off finances with which to purchase food and 
clothing that has been so generously given to these 
strikers. 


5) Literary Digest, February 25, 1922, page 13. 


292 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“Six mills in Lawrence, two mills in Rhode Island, 
two in Lowell and one in Ware, Massachusetts, have 
settled. The whole state of New Hampshire, compris- 
ing the cities of Manchester, Exeter, Suncook, Dover, 
Nashua, Somerset and New Market are still on strike. 
About 33,000 men and women are employed in these 
mills. The Blackstone Valley of Rhode Island with its 
three thousand people, must also be fed. 

“This letter is sent for the purpose of refuting the 
statements made in the press that all strikes are settled, 
and we ask you to continue your efforts to the end that 
these strikers may win their eight months’ battle. . .”© 


Mine and Railway Strikes 


Said The New York Times in its issue of November 4, 1922: 


“No monopoly is more odious than that of labor. 
It is the culmination of inhumanity toward all other 
classes. It matters not on what promises of good be- 
havior the monopoly may be established, because this 
union is notoriously faithless. ... ” (Our italics). 


The newspapers lost no time in preparing the offensive 
against the railway workers. When the Railway Labor Board 
abolished the National Agreements, the dailies of the country 
were filled with joyous comment: 


This from the Buffalo Commercial: 


“In the larger sense, this decision is no defeat for 
labor, no victory for the railways; but a victory for the 
people of the United States who know that only by a 
decided reduction in the pay of the operating expenses 
can rates be reduced and business generally revived.””) 


6) American Federation of Labor, Weekly News Letter No. 599, 
September 30, 1922. 


7) Buffalo Commercial, April 15, 1921. 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 293 


As soon as the strike appeared a certainty, the newspapers 
opened their heavy artillery on the workers. 


A. FARMINGTON (CONNECTICUT) HERALD 


“There would be more sympathy with the unskilled 
railroad labor protest against reduction in wages had 
not factory workers and others throughout the country, 
and especially in New England, suffered far more than 
the railroad men.” 


B. OKLAHOMA CITY OKLAHOMAN 


“If a strike is ordered it will be in defiance of a 
branch of the government and should be so treated by 
the Harding administration. 

“The railroad workers would not succeed with a 
strike. A strike would be a blow aimed at the public 
and would be resented by the public. Without the 
support of public opinion, the strikers could not hope 
to win. 

“If a strike is ordered, the Government should use 
whatever legal measures are at its disposal to prevent 
the conspiracy from going into effect. And it should 
step in and give the railroads whatever protection is 
necessary for the operation of the lines.” 


C. CLEVELAND (OHIO) COMMERCIAL 


“The public will expect the workers to view the 
decision from the standpoint of economic facts, grace- 
fully to accept it, and honestly to assist the country in 
getting back to normality. This is no time to strike 
and we believe that thinking railroad employees know 
this as well as anyone else.” 


D. THE NEW YORK TIMES 


“That the railway workers are condemned to pover- 
ty is nonsense. They can rise in the railway ranks or 
they can take better paying work if they can find it. 
Wages come from production, and in the railway in- 


294. THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


dustry there are no excess profits applicable to the 
payment of wages. But there have been excess wage 
payments. 


“The Board resents the statement that it reduces 
wages inhumanly, and asserts that the railways were 
able easily to contract for work more cheaply than the 
Board’s rates.” 


E. BANGOR (MAINE) COMMERCIAL 


“If a strike should take place against an order of 
the United States Railway Board, which is just as much 
a branch of the United States Government as any other 
department then it is a strike directly against the Gov- 
ernment of the Nation and nothing else.” 


F. FINDLAY (OHIO) REPUBLICAN 


“Public necessity has required cheaper railroad 
costs. The readjustment necessarily includes that part 
of the traffic and wages which represent an attempt to 
reach the peak of high prices during and immediately 
after the war. It is not a reduction in income for rail- 
road workers or operatives, so much as it is an effort 
to make everybody’s dollar buy more.” 


G. NEW YORK SUN 


“What the leaders of those Railroad Unions are 
fighting against, therefore, is not as they say it is, a wage 
readjustment by which workers are ‘degraded below a 
level of bare animal existence.’ 


“They are fighting to perpetuate an abnormal rail- 
road charge that makes it impossible for the public 
which pays all the transportation bills, to get lower 
freight and passenger traffic rates to correspond with 
the public’s own reduced wages and earnings.’’) 


8) American Railroads, published by authority of the Ass’n of Railway 
Executives, Vol. 3, No. 7, June 26, 1922, page 4. 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 295 


H. PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC LEDGER 


“This strike is a test of the Esch-Cummins Act, 
an attack upon its most forward-looking provisions. In 
1920, the Nation tired of civil war between railmen and 
management, passed this law to prevent these peren- 
nial feuds... . 

“Rail labor does not like the decisions and it quits. 
Its aim is to smash the Labor Board, regardless of the 
fact it was created by Congress at the will and request 
of the nation. 


“Outlawed by the railroads, by the Labor Board, 
by public opinion and frowned upon by the Govern- 
ment! That is the pass to which Jewell had led his 
followers.” 


Undermining the Railway Strike 


During the strike the press was busily spreading reports 
that the workers were committing crimes, that they were in- 
terfering with mail cars and that they were resorting to violence. 
In a statement issued by Mr. H. W. Strickland, Industrial Secre- 
tary of the Railway Mail Association the lie is given to this pro- 
paganda. 


“The press throughout the country is carrying re- 
ports of alleged interference with mail cars and mail 
trains by the striking shopmen; and the Railway Mail 
Association has been requested to get or send in infor- 
mation on this subject. Up to the present time, we 
have not had a report from a local officer of the Asso- 
ciation of a single case of this kind; and it is evident 
that much, if not all, of such publicity is for the pur- 
pose of propaganda and is without foundation or fact.” 


How close the cooperation between the Government and the 
press in their strikebreaking activities was throughout the strug- 
gle is evidenced from a “confidential report for clients only” 


296 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


sent out on September 2, 1922, by one of the leading news agen- 
cies of the country in Washington. 


“(Newspaper representatives at the Capital have 
been informally, but authoritatively advised that con- 
ditions are so tense in some parts of the country, that 
it is the duty of the press to be extremely careful in the 
handling of news. 


“Journalists were rather amazed when this infor- 
mation was passed to them from the highest quarters 
as they are not acquainted with any facts that warrant 
so grave an anxiety. 


“We have hinted at intervals for some months past 
of intimate reports reaching the Department of Justice 
following the Burns investigations in relation to certain 
bolshevistic activities. 


“Likewise, it is true that there have been violent 
outrages, including kidnapping in connection with the 
railroad strike, not reported generally in the press. 


“We have been unable, however, to secure direct 
information of the character the authorities must have 
to justify their real apprehension.”®? 


No wonder that Daugherty boasted to a company of Wash- 
ington correspondents of his having 90% of the American news- 
papers in back of him and that these papers were of course “the 
decent journals of the country.” 


These “decent journals” worked overtime attributing atro- 
city stories to the workers. On September 3 a three story Penn- 
sylvania Railroad warehouse was burnt at Pittsburgh. This ware- 
house was at that time being used to lodge strikebreakers, seven 
of whom died in the fire. The next morning the New York 
Herald appeared with a feature article captioned as follows: 


9) “Labor” Sept. 16, 1922. 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 297 


EIGHT PERISH IN FIRE BLAMED ON STRIKERS 


Ten Atso Hurt In Burninc oF A PENNSYLVANIA 
R. R. Reparr SHop 1n PitrtrspurcH 


TWO MEN IN CUSTODY 


Rescuers PELTED WitH Stones—BuItpine BELIEVED 
To Have BEEN SATURATED WITH OIL. 


This “atrocity” was investigated by a coroners’ jury which 
issued a report entirely disproving these charges. The report 
was ignored by most of the papers and The New York Times 
saw fit to hide it in a corner on one of its inside pages. In its 
issue of September 13, 1922, the coroner’s jury findings were 
reported as follows: 


“PITTSBURGH HoLocaAust ACCIDENTAL 


“Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Sept. 12. — A coroner’s 
jury, investigating the fire which destroyed a Penn- 
sylvania Railroad bunkhouse here on Sept. 3, with a 
loss of seven lives, tonight returned a verdict censuring 
officials and employees of the company for the condi- 
tion of the building, and holding that the blaze was 
accidental.” 


Even this small news item was “cut”. The complete news 


dispatch, meagre as it was, contained another paragraph which 
was omitted by The Times and which reads as follows: 


“The jury held that the bunkhouse, converted from 
a repair shop, was used to store inflammable material; 
that city laws governing alterations of buildings were 
violated, that exits were inadequate, and that the rail- 
road fire fighting equipment was useless because of 
inefficient organization.” 


10) See Pittsburgh Despatch printed in Brotherhood of Locomotive 
Firemen and Enginemen’s Magazine, October 1, 1922, page 5. 


298 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


We quote the following from the Daily Bulletin of Bloom- 
ington, Illinois, exposing the fraudulency of the violence pro- 
paganda indulged in by the Chicago Tribune. 


“The Chicago Tribune under the caption ‘Voice of 
the People’, published a letter from H. G. Allen entitled 
‘Free Speech in Kansas’ which makes mention of 
Bloomington and the strike situation here. The things 
referred to did not happen here, nor were they pub- 
lished in local newspapers. The following is a part of 
the article in which this city is mentioned and in which 
a false impression is given concerning local conditions. 


“ “Recently, in passing through Bloomington, II1., 
I read in the local newspapers the reports of attacks 
that had been made upon the workers in the shops there 
by strikers. In one instance a man had his arm broken 
by a blackjack in the hands of a striker. In another 
instance, a worker had saved his life by promising 
the strikers who were attacking him, that he would leave 
town. The newspapers that reported these and other 
instances also contained an expression from the local 
officers in Bloomington, that they were powerless to 
prevent these attacks,’ ”!) 


This is the way our newspapers were weaving news against 
the strikers out of the whole cloth: | 


“The Memphis (Tennessee) Scimitar, a leading 
southern paper reported on August 31, that R. E. Bu- 
chanan, the Frisco’s general agent at Memphis, had re- 
ceived a ‘black hand’ letter, threatening him bodily 
harm. Mr. Buchanan took the Scimitar to task for 
publishing a fake and it printed a correction and apol- 
ogy. The next day Mr. Buchanan received the ‘black 
hand’ letter, showing that the Scimitar reporter had 
gotten the news before it happened. 


11) From reprint in “Plumbers, Gas and Steam Fitters Journal”, Sept. 
1922, page 25, 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 299 


“About the same time the Little Rock (Arkansas) 
Daily Gazette published a story to the effect that dyna- 
mite had been exploded at a strikebreakers’ boarding 
house at Harrison, Arkansas, blaming the ‘crime’ on 
strikers. The Gazette went to press before the explo- 
sion occurred and it could not know of course, that it 
didn’t happen at the boarding house, but on an empty 
lot, a half mile distant, and was notoriously a frame- 
up.”12) 


At the close of August the Cleveland newspapers were busy 
turning out thrilling stories of unspeakable violence committed 
by the workers against the strikebreakers. Screaming headlines, 
first page stories, and illustrations featured the lie-fest. The 
truth of the matter came to light in a local paper. This exposed 
the persistent misinformation spread by the Cleveland news- 
papers in general. The dispatch read: 


“City police were unable Friday to find traces of 
an attempt to dynamite the New York Central’s Cuya- 
hoga Bridge, reported Thursday night by railroad 
police. 

“Three railroad guards fired thirty shots at ‘four 
stealthy figures’, which they said they saw at the E. 
71st Street end of the bridge. 

“The railroad men based their report of an at- 
tempted dynamiting on an alleged discovery of a ‘hole 
as large as a dish-pan’ in the soft earth near one of the 
bridge piers, 

“Police, after scouring the vicinity said they were 
unable to find the hole. 

“Fred Snare, in charge of the railroaders said the 
‘dynamiters’ opened fire and his men returned it until 
the ‘dynamiters’, their ammunition exhausted, dived into 
the river and escaped. 

“Twenty minutes after the shooting police and 
deputy sheriffs were controlling the bridge. 


12) From the “Farmer-Labor Union News”, National official organ of 
the Farm-Labor Union of America, October 19, 1922. 


300 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“A train was about to pass over the bridge, but the 
engineer heard the shooting and waited until he was 
assured that there was no longer any danger. 

“The report of the railroad policemen was termed 
‘propaganda against the shopmen on strike’ by J. H. 
Vance, Secretary of the Collinwood Shopmen’s 
Union.””}9) 


Amongst the trump cards stacked against the strikers by 
Daugherty in his plea for the injunction was the conduct of the 
shopmen at Somerset, Kentucky, and Needles, California. Apro- 
pos of the first which had been given wide publicity in the press, 
the results of an investigation conducted by the New York World, 
completely exposed the fertility of the imagination of Daugherty 


and his loyal press. 


“In his plea for the injunction against the railway 
strikers in Chicago, Friday, Attorney General Daugh- 
erty enumerated several instances of disruption of 
train service and pointed to them as explaining the ne- 
cessity of the injunction. Among them was this: 

“In Somerset, Ky., 25,000 cars of bituminous coal 
were congested in the railroad yards yesterday (Thurs- 
day). Vandals had tampered with more than five 
hundred cars there.’ 

“Yesterday the World telegraphed to Somerset, a 
little town on the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas 
Pacific Railroad to verify this statement. This was the 
reply received: 

““No coal cars are tied up in Somerset; no cars 
have been tampered with’.”)4) 


The newspapers throughout the country and Daugherty, 
formal Attorney General for the United States Government, but 
actually chief counsel of the Association of Railway Executives, 
spread the report that the workers at Needles, Cal., and other 


13) Cleveland Press, September 1, 1922. 
14) N. Y. World, Sept. 3, 1922. 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 301 


points on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, Coast Line aban- 
doned trains on the “desert” between railway terminals and thus 
subjected the passengers to cruel suffering and incalculable 
dangers. This is another case of newspaper imagination working 
overtime. We quote from an interview with Albert F. Coyle, 
editor of the Locomotive Engineers’ Journal, with Mrs. Hannah 
Moeller, 70, when she was in Cleveland with her brother-in-law, 
the Rev. Charles J. Moeller, Pastor of the Cedar Avenue Method- 
ist Church. This woman was one of the “marooned passengers” 
suffering on the “desert”. She said: 


“T can’t see why anyone should be interested in our 
little experience at Needles. We were held up for a 
few days, and some of us had to change our plans in 
consequence, but none of us underwent any suffering or 
peril. The only person who was taken ill that we knew 
anything about was a young man of thirty or thirty-five, 
who had heart trouble. He had an attack with his heart, 
but that might have occurred anywhere. Of course he 
was promptly cared for... . 

“When we got to Needles Thursday night we were 
told that we had twenty-five minutes for supper. After 
we had had a good meal at the Harvey House Restau- 
rant, which gives excellent service to the patrons of the 
Santa Fe, we learned that the engine crews who were 
supposed to pick up the train there, refused to go on 
unless the half-dozen armed guards were taken off our 
train. The engineer who brought us into Needles had 
finished his run. He was supposed to stop there. He 
didn’t desert the train at all. And, of course, Needles 
isn’t hardly a desert—it’s a very thriving little town. 
Of course it gets hot there—it does in Los Angeles, too. 
Indeed, Needles is supposed to be a healthy place, for 
a great many people go there to be cured of lung 
trouble because of the dry, pure air. 

“We were very well fed, indeed, at the Harvey 
House Restaurant, which adjoins the station. The first 
two meals we paid for ourselves, and then the railroad 


302 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


provided excellent meals without charge to us, until we 
started on our way again. The tables were bountifully 
supplied, and one could have all one wanted. 


“Why, of course, we could have iced tea if we 
wanted, or cocoa, or coffee or anything else. There 
was always plenty of ice. 


“The Harvey House has a fine, big lobby and we 
took life easy there or strolled around the streets of 
the city. Then when night came, we had our choice 
of sleeping in our berths or out on the lawn surround- 
ing the station, or staying with the employees in their 
homes. 

“Why, the railroad people, the men and their fam- 
ilies who run the trains. There are hundreds of them 
living in Needles. They live there all the time. Some 
of them have very nice homes, too. They invited the 
passengers to stay with them if they wished, and some 
of them did. But, of course, we were very well cared — 
for at the Harvey House Hotel, and I preferred to sleep 
on the lawn; it was the coldest place at nights. . . 


“We all saw the armed guards, with rows of cart- 
ridges strapped around them and a gun at their side. 
Of course, it was inconvenient for some of us. We did 
not make the connections that we had hoped to make, 
and so we had to change our plans. But we did not feel 
angry at the engineer. We all knew why he refused to 
go on.) 


This was the way the strikers were committing violence and 
hurting the passengers. But President Harding, as chief spokes- 
man of the employing class of America, cited this incident as 
proof of “the cruelty and contempt for law of some railroad 
employees.” 
the desert regions of the southwest” that have served as a strike- 
breaking revelation to our President Warren Gamaliel Harding. 


And the official statement issued by Mr. E. H. Dallas, dis- 


These are the “‘deserted trans-continental trains in 


15) Locomotive Engineers’ Journal, Sept., 1922, page 658. 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 303 


trict passenger agent of the railway company, on August 21, 
1922, from headquarters at St. Louis, sheds further light on the 
desert story. The letter to ticket agents read in part: 


“In view of the newspaper report circulated re- 
garding suffering of passengers, at points on the desert, 
where trains were stalled, wish to say, while this is con- 
sidered ‘good newspaper copy’, in the main such con- 
ditions originated in the fertile minds of space writers 
for the daily press. The four thousand inhabitants of 
Needles, Cal., apparently enjoy the climate. Admit- 
tedly it is hot in the summer months, but not sufficient 
to cause anything more than temporary inconvenience 
and that only to persons unaccustomed to hot weather. 

“The Santa Fe is particularly fortunate in having 
the Fred Harvey System of hotels and dining rooms 
along its line. The El Garces at Needles being in posi- 
tion to serve any number of meals. 


“As evidence of Santa Fe service rendered to its 
patrons on delayed trains, wish to say, when service 
was resumed, our representatives interviewed all pas- 
sengers routed via Grand Canyon and none of them 
desired to abandon their trip to the Canyon, no matter 
what the delay might be in reaching their destination. 


“All trains are now moving on regular schedules 
and I shall appreciate your giving these facts as much 
publicity as possible. 


“Yours truly, 


“FE. H. DALLAs, 
“District Passenger Agent.” 


So great was the resentment of the passengers against the 
malicious lies of the newspapers that a committee of those who 
were on the Santa Fe train No. 7 which was held at Gallup, New 
Mexico, from August 15 to August 17, wrote to the Locomotive 
Engineers’ Union to the following effect: 


304 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“The passengers wish to thank the railroad boys 
at Gallup for the good work they did. When the train 
arrived at Gallup, meals were not allowed to persons 
riding on special fare tickets or on passes. Many of 
these people were short of funds. Some of them were 
completely ‘broke’ for ready money and only one half 
of their journey was completed for most of them. 

“Many women with children were in need of clean 
laundry. No one knew how many days of delay were 
ahead of them. 

“The railroad men working into Gallup out of 
Albuquerque and those stationed at Gallup, took it 
upon themselves to find out such conditions and they 
offered their services in relieving conditions, many of 
which otherwise would have been quite distressing. 

“These railroad men raised money amongst them- 
selves to feed the people who were short of funds and 
they then staked each of the needy for two extra meals 
after the passengers left Gallup. They helped 28 
passengers in this way on the one train. 

“The boys then canvassed the train for laundry, 
had it taken care of and delivered back to the owners 
in three hours time, the laundrymen making an extra 
effort to get everything clean and dry in the shortest 
possible time. 

“For these extraordinary services and kindnesses 
the passengers on number 7, wish to make known their 
appreciation of the courtesies extended to them in Al- 
buquerque and Gallup, and especially to the members 
of the ‘Big Four Brotherhoods’.’”®) 


This is the violence and cruel inhumanity of the workers 
against which over five thousand United States marshals, scores 
of injunctions, hundreds of soldiers, thousands of newspapers 
and magazines and the entire military, judiciary and financial 
power of the employing class and their strikebreaking govern- 


ment were pitted. 


16) Locomotive Engineers’ Journal, October 1922, page 732. 


THE PRESS DOES ITS BIT 305 


But the desert seems to be a very fertile place for the 
newspaper lies to vegetate in luxuriantly. 


“In a recent issue, Senator Arthur Capper’s Topeka 
(Kansas) Capital, published what was said to be a 
photo of Mrs. Melissa Wooden, aged 94 years old, seat- 
ed in an invalid chair. It carried the heading, ‘Ma- 
rooned in Desert Rail Tie Up.’ Senator Capper de- 
clared that the aged woman was suffering from hard- 
ship caused by an ‘unauthorized strike by the Big Four 
Brotherhood members.’ 

“Doubtless readers of Senator Capper’s paper were 
taken in by this hoax, since that is what it was, as the 
following statement by A. A. Graham, a well known 
lawyer of Topeka fully affirms: 

“I remember this picture with the distinctness of 
a family portrait. It is that of Julia Ward Howe, de- 
ceased, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, 
that went the rounds of the press ten or a dozen years 
ago, having been snapped while she was being wheeled 
by a Japanese servant through a park in Boston.’ 

“Readers of Senator Capper’s paper probably in 
future will not be taken in by fakes that are put across 
for propaganda purposes.”?!”) 


Conclusion 


Addressing the Audit Bureau of Circulation in Chicago 
on October 20, 1922, Attorney General Daugherty said: 


“No man in public life who is possessed of vision 
and realizes his responsibility to Government, would 
favor regulation of the public press by law, but it is 
obvious that the power of the press must not be used 
to foster disrespect for our government and disobedi- 
ence to its laws. 

“Whenever a newspaper ridicules a law, plays up 
a policy of contempt for law and its enforcement and 


17) “Labor”, September 16, 1922. 


306 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


its news and editorial columns fosters law breaking, 
that newspaper is doing more to destroy American in- 
stitutions than a Federal Judge can do to maintain them. 

“T believe the great metropolitan journals, power- 
ful magazines, and press associations owe a duty to 
Government no wit less than the humblest immigrant 
admitted to our shores. 

“Mockery of our laws and our courts, the desecra- 
tion of the sentiments of our people must stop, and no 
agency is better equipped to stop it than the press.’”!® 


Daugherty went on to advocate the establishment of a 
weekly or daily official journal containing all government dec- 
larations and pronouncements in order to help the press and 
the people be loyal. 

The above declaration is a challenge and a warning to the 
Labor press of the country and a declaration of appreciation 
to the employing class newspapers. The newspaper is a most 
powerful weapon in the hands of the capitalists against the 
workers. There are in the United States 2,382 dailies and 13,660 
weeklies. The vast majority of these are owned and controlled 
by and run in the interests of the employing class. These news- 
papers suppress the truth and persistently spread half-truths 
and no-truths. The press is an integral part of the State ma- 
chinery employed by the capitalist class for oppressing the 
workers. The press has rendered inestimable service to the 
employing class in the recent struggles of the workers against 
starvation wages and degrading conditions of employment. There 
are millions of workers subject to the misinformation, editorial 
and open advertising campaigns of the capitalists. The workers 
must take concrete steps to improve and strengthen their press. 


18) New York Times, October 21, 1922. 


CHAPTER XII. 


AMERICAN DEMOCRACY— 
A CAPITALIST DICTATORSHIP. 


“Many of our people are convinced that the Con- 
stitution was intended to aid the rich and powerful; 
that it affords unwarranted immunities to the railroads 
and is an instrument of oppression to the poor. 

“We are convinced that if it could be submitted 
to a vote a large number of our citizens would vote in 
favor of abolishing the Constitution entirely.”.—From 
the Report of the Special Committee of the American 
Bar Association, Federal Judge Martin J. Wade, of 


Iowa, Chairman. 


The Capitalist State. 


ite every country where the means of production and exchange 

are owned by the capitalists, the employers of labor have in 
their hands an immensely organized power of oppression. This 
is the State. In America, where capitalism is highly developed 
and the capitalists are safely entrenched, the employers of la- 
bor are in control of a very powerful State having a gigantic 
sovernmental apparatus of many ramifications. This State is 
the unified and centralized power of the whole employing—ruling 
—class. Thru their State the capitalists are able to enforce the 
law and order of profits—maintain the present system of the ex- 
ploitation of the workers. 


The employers’ State, the capitalist State, whether it be de- 
mocratic or monarchial in form, is an intricate machine of op- 
pression. It grips every walk of life. No worker can avoid 

307 


e 


3038 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


its heavy hand. The National, State and Municipal Legisla- 
tures, the Executive Departments, the courts, the army, the navy, 
police, spies and detective bureaus, private gunmen and scab- 
herding agencies, the Employers’ ex-soldier organizations, the 
Ku Klux Klan, the Chambers of Commerce, the numerous Manu- 
facturers’ Associations, the press, the church, the schools, the 
theatres, and the dominant political parties, serve as extra-legal 
tentacles of the State stretching out in all directions. 


In the United States. 


American capitalism is maintained by what is perhaps, to- 
day, the most gigantic organ of oppression. Vigor and dash 
mark its brutality which is painfully prompt and sure in over- 
coming the enemy of the capitalist class—the working class. The 
long and severe prison sentences handed out to the leaders of 
the workers, “government by injunction,” military crushing of 
strikes, disfranchisement of workers on account of color or birth- 
place, the removal or assassination of governmental officials 
even suspected of being sympathetic to the workingmen, tarring 
and feathering, kidnapping and lynching, raids and deportation, 
poisonous propaganda and fraudulent learning, a_hireling 
church, the killing and wounding of hundreds of thousands in 
war, ruthless exploitation, and denial of the rights of assembly, 
speech, and press to the workers—these make up the bountiful 
crop of “the greatest democracy in the world.” Our “demo- 
cracy” crushes the workers with an incomparable readiness and 
fervor. In theory, the United States Government is a model of 
the “pure and abstract” capitalist democracy preserved at the 
cost of the lives of ten million workingmen. In practice, the 
United States Government is the model servant of the employing 
class. 

Our exploiters and oppressors have raised a halo about the 
American Government. Thru their ownership of the press, 


AMERICAN DEMOCRACY—A DICTATORSHIP 309 


schools, churches and countless other organs of information and 
misinformation, they can strongly influence the minds of the 
workers. The average American honestly believes all the fan- 
tastic stories about the great kindness and holy glory of our 
“democracy.” He is ready to die for it. The workingman’s 
ideology is largely a product of his employer’s skilful propa- 
ganda. 

The reactionary trade union bureaucrats and their syco- 
phantic allies, the reform-socialists, have rendered admirable 
service to the capitalists by strengthening the faith of the work- 
ers in the whole governmental machinery of the employers’ 
State. 

Some History. 


An analysis of the plan and structure of the American Goy- 
ernment conclusively reveals the fact that our much-vaunted 
Constitution is an excellent plan of crushing the working masses 
and baffling their will. Historians like Beard, Smith, Bryce, 
Fiske, McMaster and Woodrow Wilson offer abundant evidence 
to show that the American Constitution and the Government 
founded upon it were deliberately designed to eliminate, as far 
as possible, the direct influence of the broad masses on legisla- 
tion and public policy. 

At first the American Revolution was merely an organized 
armed protest against what seemed to our forefathers to be an 
arbitrary and unwarrantable taxing power exercised by the 
British ruling class. As the struggle developed, the war took 
on a much broader and more popular basis. For a time the 
poorer classes -were a powerful factor in the political life of the 
country. But with the return of peace, the propertied classes 
steadily regained prestige. A strong wave of reaction then set 
in. It was under such conditions that the American Constitu- 
tion was adopted and the present American Government or- 
ganized. 


310 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Our Holy Constitution. 


To the average American workingman, the Constitution is 
the very incarnation, the very embodiment of democracy. In 
fact, the Constitution is only an attempt to apply the precepts 
of the 18th century philosophy—the aims and ideals of the ca- 
pitalists rapidly coming into the position of a ruling class. 
Adam Smith, the economic and political lodestar of the rising 
capitalist class has tersely formulated the essence of this phi 
losophy as applied to Government. He said: 


“Civil Government, so far as it is instituted for 
the security of property, is in reality instituted for the 
defense of the rich against the poor, or those who have 
some property against those who have none at all.” 


This was the guiding principle of our “Fathers” who framed 
the Constitution. The Constitutional Convention set up as its 
goal the organization of a government that would as much as 
possible keep out the broad masses and not be directly respon- 
sible to them. According to Professor J. Allen Smith, they 
sought to devise a government “which was just popular enough 
not to excite general opposition and which at the same time gave 
to the people as little as possible of the substance of political 
power.” : 


Bribery and a strong appeal to the fear of European aj- 
gression helped to secure the adoption of the Constitution ky 
the States. Bryce maintains that if the Constitution had been 
put to a popular vote instead of to the States, it would have been 
rejected. At the time of its adoption, the American working 
masses did not look upon the much-venerated Constitution of 
today as a democratic document. 


AMERICAN DEMOCRACY—A DICTATORSHIP 311 


An Underground Convention. 


Today the American Government drives the most advanced 
spokesmen of the working class, the Communists, underground. 
Then it persecutes and hounds these very workingmen for being 
underground. Yet, the Federal Convention at which the Ameri- 
can Government was founded was a completely underground con- 
vention—hidden from the masses. Utmost secrecy character- 
ized the sessions which were held behind closed doors. The 
delegates were not allowed to communicate with anyone outside. 
No one could make any copy from the record without special 
permission from the body. These steps were taken in order to 
facilitate realization of the aims of the Convention—a strongly 
centralized government possessing great immunity from change. 

A reading of the proceedings, which were not made public 
until fifty years after the Convention, will disillusion anyone as 
to the faith that body had in the masses. Such honest spokes- 
men for popular rule as Paine and Jefferson were not to be 
found in that gathering. Delegate Elbridge Gerry, later Vice- 
President, saw in democracy the worst of all political evils. He 
realized, however, that it was unwise to make public such sen- 
timents. This “Father” of our country believed “that the people 
should at least appoint one branch of the government in order 
to inspire them with the necessary confidence.” 


The Venerable “Fathers.” 


Our schools deify the “Fathers” of the American Government. 
They set them up as idols to be worshipped. But the noted h‘s- 
torian McMaster fearlessly characterizes these “Fathers” in the 
following: 


“A very little study of long-forgotten politics will 
suffice to show that the filibustering and gerrymander- 
ing, in stealing Governorships and Legislatures, in us- 


312 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


ing force at the polls, in colonizing and distributing 
patronage to whom patronage is due, in all the frauds 
and tricks that go to make up the worst form of practi- 
cal politics, the men who founded our State and Na 
tional governments were always our equals, and often 
our masters.” 


Hamilton wanted to give the rich and well-born “a distinct, 
permanent share in the government.” He had a prophetic vision 
of the class struggle that was to develop in the United States. To 
Hamilton it was plain that 


“all communities divide themselves into the few and the 
many. The first are the rich and well-born; the other, 
the mass of the people, are turbulent and changing. 
They seldom judge or determine right.” 


Gouverneur Morris went as far as éven to propose the ap- 
pointment of men of aristocratic blood for life to the upper 
House, the Senate, in order to check the lower House. And Ma- 
dison, often called the Father of the Constitution, believed that 
the Government ought “to protect the minority of the opulent 
against the majority.” This is the essence of American “de- 
mocracy” today, a rule of the employing class, by the employing 
class, and for the employing class—a capitalist dictatorship 
over the working class. 


Against the Masses. 


A. A RIGID CONSTITUTION. 


The American Constitution is replete with the most cleverly 
devised and deadly effective means of baffling the will of the 
masses and making it almost impossible for them to alter the 
form of the government. The Constitution makes it impossible 
for the working masses directly to propose or even ratify changes 
in the fundamental law. : 


AMERICAN DEMOCRACY—A DICTATORSHIP = 313 


An extraordinary majority is required even to amend the 
Constitution. A two-thirds majority of both Houses on appli- 
cation from the Legislatures in two-thirds of the States is re- 
quired merely to set in motion the machinery for Constitutional 
amendment. Then, the ratification of the proposed amendment 
can come only after it has been assented to by conventions or the 
legislatures in three-fourths of the States, as Congress may de- 
cide. On this basis, approximately one-fifteenth of the popula- 
tion, so distributed as to constitute a majority in the thirteen 
smallest states, can defeat any amendment proposed. With the 
control of the Government and the press resting securely in the 
hands of their employers, it is practically impossible for the 
workers to utilize the Constitution as a means of effective funda- 
mental change. Because of countless obstacles, the workers 
have been unable to win a bare majority for a mere reform. It 
follows then that the belief that the workers, under even more 
aggravated circumstances, are likely to win a two-thirds majority 
for a fundamental change, is utterly untenable. Likewise the 
belief of the reform-Socialists that the American Constitution 
makes it possible for the working class to make a revolution in 
the formally legal way is farther from the truth by a greater 
distance than that thru which Lucifer fell. 

Apropos of this feature of our Constitution, Woodrow Wil- 
son said: 


“None of the written constitutions of Europe are 
so difficult for alteration as our own.” 


Of over two thousand proposed amendments only nine- 
teen have been adopted so far. The first twelve were inconsequen- 
tial. The next three were adopted thru the force of arms—that 
is, while the Northern Army of Occupation still held the con- 


1) Woodrow Wilson, “The State,” page 524. 


314 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


quered Southern States or as a price for readmission to Congress. 
In fact, not a single one of the Constitutional amendments adopted 
since then is of a fundamental, social nature. In no other country 
in the world has thé employing class such an effective barrier 
against possible encroachments by the workers. This distinc- 
tion between legislative and constittitional amendment does not 
exist in any other country in the world. 


B. THE ARISTOCRACY OF THE ROBE, 


Another feature of American “democracy” is the court sys- 
tem. The judicial system is an insurmountable wall which the 
American workers hit up against in every strike, in every indus- 
trial dispute, in every move they may make for the improvement 
of their conditions. The whole plan of American government 
hinges on the unlimited authority of the courts. This device is 
the most important Constitutional check on the working masses. 
More than that. It serves as a deadly effective means of pre- 
serving and enforcing all the other checks. 


The Constitution provides for life tenure of the Supreme 
Court judges. These judges are not elected by the people, but 
appointed by the President. The Supreme Court, a small, irre- 
movable oligarchy of nine Judges has absolute veto power and 
exclusive right of interpreting all law. No other Government, 
not even the old Hohenzollern Monarchy, had such an effective 
Constitutional means of preserving and perpetuating the capi- 
talist system. This sanctum sanctorum of the “democracy” of 
the American employing class may not only legislate without the 
consent of the regularly constituted legislative bodies but even 
against them. This Holy Synod of Nine Capitalist Bishops is 
an independent legislative and judiciary body combined. The 
Supreme Court is the part of the Government furthest removed 
from the mass of working people. It prevents even the slightest 


AMERICAN DEMOCRACY—A DICTATORSHIP = 315 


legal changes and only barely avoids an aristocratic appearance 
for the American Government. In reality, however, the Su- 
preme Court is based on the doctrine of divine rights. In the 
days of feudalism the King could do no wrong. Today, in the days 
of capitalism, nine little kings in the United States (often it is 
only five), the Supreme Court Judges, can do no wrong—to the 
capitalist class. 


Anent the role played by the Supreme Court in the class 
war, Professor J. Allen Smith says: 


“These decisions have been almost uniformly ad- 
vantageous to the capital-owning class in preserving 
property rights and corporate privileges. It is not, 
however, in the laws which have been annulled or modi- 
fied by interpretation that we find the chief protection 
afforded to capital, but rather in the laws which have 
not been enacted. The mere existence of this power 
and the certainty that it would be used in defense of the 
existing social order has well-nigh prevented all attacks 
on vested rights by making their failure a foregone con- 
clusion.” 


The Legal Tender Decision, The Income Tax Decision of 
1905, the Danbury Hatters’, the Child Labor Law Decisions, and 
the Coronado Decision are only a few examples of service ren- 
dered to the employing class and of injury inflicted upon the 
working class by the Supreme Court. 


Besides, thru “Government by injunction,” our courts en- 
act special, criminal, emergency legislation against the workers. 
The injunction granted by Judge Wilkerson in the 1922 railway 
strike is typical of the justice suffered by the workers at the hands 
of their employers’ Government. Suddenness is one of the prime 
requisites for making a strike successful. Thru the issuance of 
injunctions the courts rob the workers of this most potent factor 
of their power to strike. 


316 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


And, when the Supreme Court annuls a law, the décision 
takes effect not from the time the judgment is rendered, but from 
the time the Act in question was originally passed. This re- 
troactive character, known in law as ex post facto legislation, is 
supposed to be against the Constitution. But for the workers 
this power of the Supreme Court is a grim reality. The Consti- 
tution does not matter a straw when there is a conflict between 
capitalist profits and the rights of the exploited workers. 


The “Fathers” consciously and deliberately put this power- 
ful weapon in the hands of the ruling, propertied class in order 
to stifle the working masses. 


We have emphasized the Supreme Court, not because its 
Judges are the only ones the President appoints or because it is 
the only court that oppresses the workingmen. The President 
appoints many other robed tyrants, such as District and Circuit 
Judges. Only recently Congress passed what has been called 
the “Midnight Judges’ Bill” empowering the President to create 
twenty-four new Federal judgeships and fill their vacancies forth- 
with. The whole American judiciary system, the State Courts 
and the sundry Federal Courts running parallel with them, is 
used by the employing class to oppress the workers. 


Cc. CHECKS AND BALANCES. 


The system of checks and balances further buttresses the 
capitalist barriers against any change of the Government by the 
working class in the interests of the workers. Originally, this 
system was fostered by the capitalists in England when they were 
struggling for power with the feudal, aristocratic class: Then 
the capitalists saw in it a means of limiting the powers of the 
feudal rulers. Today as in the past, the existence of the checks 
and balances system is an open recognition of a class conflict. 


AMERICAN DEMOCRACY—A DICTATORSHIP 317 


In the United States, there being no landed aristocracy, the ca- 
pitalists have adopted this system for use against the workers. 

Our House of Representatives has less power than the 
Senate or President. The latter have the power of appointment 
and treaty making. They may cede or annex territory in total 
disregard of the House. Our “Fathers” figured that the Presi- 
dent and Senate, being in the main drawn from the same reac- 
tionary type, would thus serve as a double check on the lower 
body in which there is a greater danger from working class re- 
presentatives. Today the House is more a shadow than a sub- 
stance of representation. Its much-vaunted control of the purse 
is crippled, for once an appropriation is enacted it cannot be 
repealed or even modified without the consent of the President 
and Senate. The army and navy appropriations are excepted 
from this rule. 

This system of checks and balances also enables a group 
or party defeated in an election to gobble up hundreds of mil- 
lions of dollars before the newly elected legislators take their 
seats. This arrangement aims at stifling protest. It aims at 
securing a “cooling-off” of the sentiment of discontent which may 
sweep out a controlling Party or group. A repudiated Congress 
is therefore in a position to continue legislating, for the new Con- 
gress regularly does not go into session until thirteen months 
after its election. The 1922 elections afford an excellent ex- 
ample of such a condition. Scores of Congressmen and Sena- 
tors had been turned out of office. Yet, they were continuing to 
enact legislation involving the health and safety of millions of 
people and the expenditure of billions of dollars. 

Furthermore, this system of checks and balances makes it 
very difficult to fix responsibility. In this way it is of inestimable 
aid to the employers in hiding the capitalist class character of 
the Government. The division of authority between the two le- 
gislative houses makes it possible for either one to pretend to 


318 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


favor the demands of the workingmen and yet to sabotage them. 
An incident in the recent railroad strike brings this home with 
painful clarity. Compelled by the hopeless inadequacy of the 
force of inspectors and by the persistent, unpunished violations 
of the safety laws by the railroads, the Senate, at the recommen- 
dation of the Interstate Commerce Commission, tnanimously 
adopted an appropriation of $175,000, providing for 35 addi- 
tional inspectors. But a conference committee of the House of 
Representatives, saw fit to kill it by threatening to postpone in- 
definitely the adjournment of Congress if the bill would come 


up. The Senate conferees then accepted the dictation. The 
bill died. 


D. THE COMMITTEE SYSTEM. 


The very system of procedure in the House of Representa- 
tives is calculated to banish every possibility of its assuming 
power as a body. At the opening of the new congress, the Sen- 
ate and House divide themselves into many standing committees. 
No Congressman is permitted to propose a bill unless it is first 
favorably passed upon by the “proper” committee. Here the 
bills of a minority party quickly find their way to oblivion, for 
the majority party controls the committees. Minority parties 
are placed on committees in order to blur the responsibility of 
the ruling party in the eyes of the masses. Working class re- 
presentatives can thus be completely deprived of their “inalien- 
able” right to introduce bills and voice the interests of labor. 
The record of the last few Congresses, even omitting the fact 
that the President is steadily assuming powers vested in the 
House, shows that this committee system works with an ever-in- 
creasing effectiveness in deadening the influence of our lower 
legislative body. | 


The Esch-Cummins Law involving the wages and working 
conditions of hundreds of thousands of railroad workers and the 


AMERICAN DEMOCRACY—A DICTATORSHIP = 319 


entire railway system of the country, consumed ten months in 
being drafted in the committee. It was rushed thru the House 
in seventy-two hours after introduction and was finally passed 
within only four days after its introduction. The reason for the 
extraordinarily one-sided difference in time consumed by the 
committee and the House on this bill is accounted for by Con- 
gressman Huddleston, who, discussing this act, said: “So far as 
I know, it is not claimed by any one that the Transportation Act 
originated in Congress. . . Its real origin was in banks, rail- 
road lawyers, and other lobbyists. ri 


Thru this committee system, control of legislation by the 
employing class is greatly facilitated. 


In the case of the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Bill, the big 
capitalists had it sent to a hand-picked conference committee, to 
make absolutely secure their interests. Outwardly, this commit- 
tee consisted of five from each House of which there were three 
Republicans and two Democrats. Actually, the Republicans 
closed the doors on the Democratic Committee members. The 
procedure was even worse. Senator La Follette, the third rank- 
ing member of the Senate Committee on Finance, who, by all 
precedent and custom should have been on this committee, was 
deliberately ignored by Vice-President Coolidge, who chose 
the committee and Senator McLean of Connecticut, pet friend 
of the head of the silk trust, was selected instead. The Tariff 
Bill was framed in the secret sessions of a handful of picked 
reactionary Senators. It was then jammed thru. Congress was 
denied even an adequate opportunity to debate or consider it. 
The bill as enacted, put into the hands of the President the con- 
trol of the raising and the lowering of the tariff rates in viola- 
tion of Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution and saddled 
on the working masses of America, a tribute ranging up to 


$6,000,000,000. 


320 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Apparently the difficulty even to amend formally or ques- 
tion the Constitution is a difficulty only for the workers. To the 
capitalists, the Constitution is no barrier when their interests— 
their profits—demand it. But when the workers manifest the 
slightest indications of challenging their authority, the Constitu- 
tion with all its bloated sacredness and rigorous holiness, is 
called to their rescue. 


Another example of the ease with which the committee 
system enables the capitalists to run the Government in a fashion 
solely conducive to their own ends is presented in the case of 
Senator William E. Borah’s membership on the Labor and Edu- 
cation Committee. Because of his rank and strategic position 
as a dissenter, Borah was given the chairmanship of this Com- 
mittee. But the Committee was then packed with such reac- 
tionaries as Senator Warren of Wyoming, the wool king and of- 
ten called “the greatest shepherd since Abraham”; the million- 
aire munition maker Senator Du Pont of Delaware; Senator 
Phipps, of Colorado, the sycophantic lackey of the United States 
Steel Trust and Senator Shortridge of California, a highly skilled 
corporation lawyer. Borah had been having a very difficult time 
of it in this company. The matter came to a crisis during the 
strike of the miners on account of the organization of a fact- 
finding commission for the coal industry. Senator Borah be- 
came disgusted with the delaying tactics of President Harding 
and his friends on the Committee. He insisted on the reorgani- 
zation of the Committee or the choice of a new chairman. 


Because of the defeat of Senator McCumber of North Da- 
kota, Senator Smoot, of Utah, in accordance with the Seniority 
rule, became Chairman of the Committee of Finance. But in 
accordance with the same rule Senator La Follette, the progres- 
sive, is next in line of succession. McCumber’s defeat also leaves 
Senator Borah, another progressive, next to the top in the For- 


AMERICAN DEMOCRACY—A DICTATORSHIP = 321 


eign Relations Committee of which the reactionary Lodge is 
Chairman. Therefore, Senator Medill McCormick, of Illinois, 
Chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, 
has come forward with a plan to end the practice of choosing 
chairmen of Senate Committees by the rule of seniority and to 
reorganize the Republican “steering committee” so as to deter- 
mine legislative programs between the steering committees of the 
Senate and the House. 

The inestimable service rendered by the Committee System 
was brought into bold relief in the impeachment proceedings 
against Daugherty. Congressman Keller of Minnesota brought 
fourteen grave charges against Daugherty. But the biggest in- 
dustrial and financial interests of the country were involved in 
the exposure and punishment. The matter was referred to a 
special committee which handled matters in excellent style for 
the millionaire plunderers and powerful employers. The fol- 
lowing indictment of the proceedings made by Representative 
Keller who was forced to quit in the midst of his case by the 
high-handed methods of this whitewashing committee is a stinging 
indictment of the whole committee system of Government, and 
exposes its efficacy as an instrument for baffling the will of the 
workers and safeguarding the interests of the employers. 


“1. Practically every important decision of the 
Committee with reference to procedure has been made 
in secret, with no notice to me or my attorneys to be 
heard in advance of the making of such decisions. On 
several occasions it has been announced that these de- 
cisions were by unanimous vote of the committee and 
several members of the committee, including those on 
the majority side, have openly announced that they 
knew nothing whatever of such decisions having been 
made; that they were not informed that the Committee 
was to meet to make such decisions and that such al- 
leged unanimous action was without their consent. 


322 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“These decisions of the committee were in “some 
instances, never communicated to me or my attorney at 
all, but I got my only information about them thru the 
public press and my written protest to the committees 
against such action has been ignored. 


“2. The secret decisions have operated to restrict 
me in presenting my evidence in the order in which it 
could be most expeditiously and effectively presented 
and have taken away from me and from my counsel 
the right to determine ihe order of presentation of our 
case and the calling of our witnesses. ‘These decisions 
have also taken from me the right to call on any wit- 
ness until I first notify the committee as to what that 
witness will testify. At the same time the record dis- 
closes that upon motion of one of your members, the 
committee decided to permit Harry M. Daugherty to 
present his defense ‘in any manner that to him seems 
fit’. 

“9. Ihe Committee has arrogated to itself the 
right to determine what documents shall or shall not be 
introduced in evidence by a secret examination of these 
documents and has refused to permit me or my coun- 
sel to describe these documents or to offer any argu- 
ments whatever as to their admissibility. 


“6. The Committee has announced that it will be 
in secret and without opportunity for hearing or ar- 
gument to ‘correct’ the official record of these proceed- 
ings by striking out such testimony as the committee 
deems irrelevant. Thus the public record will dis- 
close, not the actual proceedings had here, but only 
such parts of these proceedings as the Committee will 
permit to be of record. 


“7. The Committee has already distorted and pub- 
lished records of these hearings by omitting and refus- 
ing to permit my letter of December 1, transmitting 
my bill of specifications, altho the Chairman specially 
stated that this letter would be made a part of the rec- 
ord and although Harry M. Daugherty’s letter of trans- 
mittal of his answer was so published. 


AMERICAN DEMOCRACY—A DICTATORSHIP 323 


“8. The Committee has one rule of procedure for 
the defense and another rule for the prosecution. In 
addition to the unfair secret decisions already referred 
to, the committee has at times permitted the widest lat- 
titude to the introduction of alleged evidence in de- 
fense of Harry M. Daugherty on the grounds that this 
was a legislative hearing, and not a court procedure; 
while frequently limiting my own presentation of facts. 

“The evident purpose of this is to keep from the 
record material evidence against the Attorney General, 
and to put into the record the most veritable kind of 
hearsay in defense of the Attorney General and against 
the characters and reputation of those who oppese 
him, and no opportunity has been granted the persons 
thus traduced to defend themselves. 

“10. . . . I cannot permit myself to be put in the 
position of assisting in any way in his whitewash per- 
formance and remain true to my oath as a member of 
the House of Representatives. 

“I reiterate that I am now in possession of evi- 
dence ample to prove Harry M. Daugherty guilty of 
the high crimes and misdemeanors with which I have 
charged him. I am ready and anxious to present this 
evidence in a proper way before an unbiased commit- 
tee, but I emphatically refuse to permit it to be used as 
whitewashing material.” (Our Italics). 


Our Cabinet System. 


The President appoints the members of his Cabinet. These 
Cabinet members are heads of various divisions of the Executive 
Department of the Government. In the President’s Cabinet lies 
the heart of the American Government and the Cabinet officers 
are the arteries of the whole Governmental system. The Depart- 
mental] heads of the Cabinet serve as the connecting links between 
the powerful centers of industry and finance and the innermost 
conclaves of the Government itself. They carry the blood of 
the mass of workers into the huge banking and industrial estab- 


324 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


lishments of the employers. They are the veritable executive 
committee of the employing class of America. The activities 
of the leading members of our Cabinet bear this out with a. 
vengeance. 

Our Secretary of Agriculture Wallace supervises the pro- 
tection of the interests of those capitalists whose profits depend 
on the exploitation of the farming masses. The Secretary of 
the Treasury Mellon, himself one of the biggest trust magnates 
in the world, and having a direct financial interest in his official 
acts, is the guardian angel of the millionaire tax-dodgers and 
giant trusts. Our ex-Secretary of Interior, Fall, has shown by his 
‘handing over the rich Teapot Oil Dome region of Wyoming to the 
Standard Oil Company how loyal he is to the employing class. 
Our Secretary of War Weeks, and Secretary of the Navy Denby, 
have appeared in their true colors when they ordered marines to 
Wyoming to transfer oil lands to the Rockefeller interests, and 
when battleships were despatched with the utmost speed to for- 
eign waters to protect the interests of the employing class abroad. 
Our Secretary of State Hughes, formerly paid by the Standard 
Oil for defending its interests, is now receiving a salary from 
the Government for continuing to do the same, as seen in the 
declared oil policy of America at the Lausanne Conference. The 
Secretary of Commerce Hoover is now receiving a Government 
bonus for acting in the capacity of official adviser to the employ- 
ing class. Our Attorney General Daugherty, once in the pay of 
millionaire swindlers and_ thieves, is now drawing pay from the 
Government for continuing to shelter wealthy criminals from 
jails and for persecuting workers. And last, but not least, is 
our President who has been exposed in his true role as suppliant 
servant and general representative of the big capitalists by his 
strikebreaking activities in the railway and mine conflicts. 


In European Governments, the Cabinet as a whole, and every © 
Cabinet member singly, is responsible to the will of the legisla- 


AMERICAN DEMOCRACY—A DICTATORSHIP 325 


tive house directly and the voters indirectly. In America, the 
situation is entirely different. Our Cabinet is not responsible— 
directly or indirectly—to the masses. In so far as the workers 
are concerned the Cabinet is a Governmental body owing loyalty 
and responsibility only to the lords of Wall Street. This sit- 
uation has been thus portrayed by Congressman Huddleston, 


of Alabama: 


“The President is not merely surrounded by cap- 
tains of industry and finance in his environment and 
social life, but the same atmosphere pervades his Ca- 
binet. Remember, Mellon, who represents big business 
and big finance at its best and at its worst. And do not 
forget Hoover, Weeks, and Fall, all men of the same 
stripe in their attitude towards labor. Then there is 
Daugherty, the practical politician and middle man 
between the Administration and the sources of political 
power and _ political finances. se 


Our Party System. 


Besides the organic barriers of the American Government 
to a working class expression of will thru its parliamentary 
structure, there are other thwarting bodies that have become 
part and parcel of the Governmental machinery. One of these 
is the institution of the American political party. The American 
political party system serves as an additional effective check on 
the masses. 

In England, unlike in the United States, the Party has the 
right not only to elect but also to remove its representatives. In 
America, the only control the masses have over a candidate is a 
blind faith in dishonest election promises. The American po- 
litical Parties have no responsibility for the Government. The 
American political Party serves as an especially perfected means 


2) Locomotive Engineers’ Journal, September 1922, page 656. 


326 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


for advancing the interests of the employing class. The ma- 
chines of our dominant Parties are subsidized by and are the 
property of the manufacturers and bankers. That “the donkey and 
elephant feed from the same crib” is a well established fact. An 
examination of the report of the three Republican National Com- 
mittees, the National, Senatorial, and Congressional, on the ex- 
penditures and receipts of the 1922 campaign funds shows who 
controls its purse strings and creates its policies. Among the 
largest contributions to the various Committees were: 


RY B.7 Mellon, Pittsburgh .i) 2 6 eee $26,000 
John:D.- Rockefeller fut). 235,22 eee 15,750 
George Eastman, Rochester ................ 10,912 
12 2ASs Patten; Chicheoi ees ote eee 10,000 
John, D." Rockefeller) -Jr2 7 ee eee 10,750 
Dr. S, G: ‘Kennedy, ‘Tulsa, Oklas: vo o.). - tam 10,000 
William Wrigley, s|rve7. 2 ona ee eee 10,000 
Frederick W. Allen, New York.............. 10,000 
Fred Upham, Chairman Republican Nat. Com. 10,000 
D.Az Reed, Pittsburgh: 42. 0es. eee eee 10,000 
Henry F. Lippit, Providence, R. I........... 10,000 
Mr. and. Mrs. Carnell, Dayton. .......:3:95. 9,000 
Henry... Doherty, New) York. ...5.4.¢4e0u Ge 7,500 
F; B.: Patterson, ‘Dayton, Ohio.) 0... .4gaue 6,875 
Mrs. Dorothy P. Judah, Dayton............ 6,875 
Julius Fleischman, New York............... 6,000 
Herbert::Hoover... ise adn coe sa sae 5,000 
S. R. Guggenheim, New York.............. 5,000 
Otto Kahn) New York.27 7 0 a ee 5,000 
Payne Whitney, New York................. 5,000 
samueliInsull, \ Chicago. eastseavcienae se 5,000 
Wi wWaWrigley,’ Chicago: uyn vache le ae 5,000 
Ee Po cSwensen. New Yorkie ee el ee 4.500 
Bupene Meyers: i... atte «is petals «in 9 see 3,750 


Arthur GC: James; NewsYorkuieo) 1 i... see 3,500 


AMERICAN DEMOCRACY—A DICTATORSHIP = 327 


Walter Douglas, New York ................ $3,000 
Paul M. Warburg, New York............... 2,500 
Mrs. Henry R. Rea, Pittsburgh............. 2,500 
Hieeey Glakmer, Denver... ..0. 60.0000 ee 2,300 
Here, suarkness,) New York... Vi yu ees 2,000 
SemeeeLamont,- Chicago. : <0). .\csag ss'eu we sieaie s 1,500 


Among the other large contributors were Vincent Astor 
John H. Hammond of the Coal Fact Finding Commission, 
Colonel R. H. I. Goddard, the textile baron of Rhode Island, 
Paul D. Cravath, B. D. Coleman, J. Rosenwald, Will Hays, and 
William J. Burns.*) 

In this list we have bankers, coal magnates, railway kings, 
oil barons, textile manufacturers, steel and aluminum monopol- 
ists, realty sharks, clothing manufacturers, merchants, and 
dividend mongers and coupon clippers of every description. 
These are the men who own and control the Republican Party. 
Substitute Barney Baruch for Paul Warburg and J. P. Morgan 
for John D. Rockefeller and you have the picture of the Demo- 
cratic Party likewise owned in fee simple. 

And these are only part of the funds announced publicly. 
The hundreds of thousands of dollars that may have been spent 
secretly for vote purchasing and ward-heeler activities are not 
accounted for here. Yet, by October 27th, 1922, the accounted 
campaign funds of the Republican Party totalled $720,737. Our 
dominant political parties are thus kept out of the reach of the 
large bulk of constituent members as well as the mass of voters. 

To make matters worse, there are many States that have 
election and primary laws that serve as almost inseparable ob- 
stacles in the way of the development of third parties. 

It is the task of the dominant political parties in the United 
States to perpetuate the rule of the employing class. Every one 
of these parties is afflicted with secret methods and cunning ar- 


3) New York Times, October 28, 1922. 


328 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


rangements for corporation rule. This is shown in the forces 
behind the scene that run the party conventions, determine the 
party platforms, and pick the candidates. Nor does a popular 
majority of a Party indicate such a popular approval of its plat- 
form. The -American Parties always have a multitude of is- 
sues in order to attract all sorts of voters. In the United States, 
more than in any other country, do the Parties tend to state their 
issues unclearly and inject personal elements into the election 
campaigns. 
Conclusion. 

We have seen that the Government is playing an ever-in- 
creasing role in the lives of the workers; particularly in their 
struggles against their employers. We have seen that the Amer- 
ican Government was deliberately planned and carefully built 
to baffle the will of the masses and to perpetuate the rule of the 
propertied class—the employing class, the capitalists. 

Organically, the American Government, as organized today, 
is best fitted to serve as an organ of the exploiting class for op- 
pressing the workers. J 

Structurally, the American Government, as organized to- 
day, is unfitted to serve as an organ for the achievement of 
working class liberation. The very structure of the present 
Government puts almost insurpassable obstacles in the path of 
the development of a powerful working class movement. 

It is for this reason that the American employing class has 
been able to use the Government as a strikebreaking agency 
with such facility. 

In the light of our analysis of the very constitution of the 
Government and in the light of its continuous strikebreaking ac- 
tivities, what is the meaning, to the workers, of the giant strikes 
of 1922? How have the workers reacted to this condition? 
What is the outlook of our working class for the new bitter 
strugeles ahead? 


CHAPTER XIII. 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES 
AND THE OUTLOOK 


fl Nephi three great strikes of 1922—the textile, the miners’, and 

the railway workers—proved a steel rod in the American 
labor movement. They showed the employers and their Govern- 
ment the real mettle of the workers—a tenacity, a heroism, a 
solidarity inconceivable to the capitalists in the dark days of 
working class retreat and rout. But of even far greater import- 
ance to the American labor movement than this renewal of fight- 
ing spirit and resistance is the effect that these battles have had 
on the workers. The outstanding gain made by the workers is the 
tremendous impetus that these struggles have given to the de- 
velopment of a realistic, practical, militant, political and in- 
dustrial movement amongst them. The left wing movement 
was greatly strengthened not only in the unions on strike, but 
also in the other organizations. Dualism, secessionism, craft 
unionism, labor ireason, a_ strikebreaking Government were 
amongst the heavy sufferers in these battles. Amalgamation 
of craft unions into industrial unions, the trend toward a labor 
party, and class-consciousness were the heaviest gainers in these 
struggles. 

Indicative of the growing class-consciousness of the workers 
is the following from an editorial in the Railway Clerk: 


“The Daughertys and Palmers are simply the 
creatures of class Government. There must be a new 
deal all around if the workers expect to have their in- 
terests looked after. They must elect representatives 

329 


330 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


of their own class—Congressmen, Senators and the 
President—so that when Attorney Generals, Federal 
Judges and Supreme Court Justices are appointed, 
friends, not enemies of the working class will sit in 
these high places. 

“Tt is the capitalist class that we must impeach. 
And the place to do that is at the polls.” 


This statement of the problem confronting the workers is 
fundamentally vague as to method, but it breeds a spirit of ac- 
tion, of solidarity, of rising class-consciousness. It indicates 
a positive and important step in advance—a step towards mi- 
litant working class political action. 


Political Radicalization 


As a result of the severe industrial crisis there came an 
intensive and extensive movement of political radicalization. 
The brutality of the employing class dictatorship was unmasked 
by a series of outrages perpetrated upon the workers by the 
courts and the various departments of the Government. 


A. THE ELECTIONS OF NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO 


The year 1922 saw a greater participation by the workers, 
as workers, in the political campaign. Though the workers 
did not have a national party, even the most backward of them, 
such as the officialdom of the American Federation of Labor, 
took broader and deeper cognizance of the election. The rail- 
road unions, ordinarily above “partisanship” in politics, took 
a very active part in the elections in many districts. 


This great awakening, vague and incomplete as it was, 
was a measure of the sharpening of class lines. And the spokes- 
men of the employing class recognized it as such. Addressing 


1) The Railway Clerk, November 1922, page 514: 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES 331 


the American Bankers’ Association Convention in New York 
City, Frank Munsey, noted reactionary newspaper owner and 
steel magnate, called for a fusion of the two employing class 
parties, the Democratic and the Republican, to meet the issues 
of the day and hold the lines against the sweeping tide of ra- 
dicalism. He said: 


“The salvation of our present situation would be 
a liberal-conservative party, numerically strong enough 
to hold the balance of power against the radical forces. 

“A new issue (the labor problem) has developed 
that now divides all America into political camps as 
yet without political names. Some day, and not a very 
distant day at that, these two groups will evolve into 
organized political parties with names that signify 
what they stand for.” 


And addressing the Tenth Meeting of the Institute of Arts 
and Sciences of Columbia University, President Nicholas Mur- 
ray Butler of the latter institution openly declared that: 


“The overwhelming majority of Republicans and 
the overwhelming majority of Democrats, who are in 
substantial agreement on all fundamentals, should 
speedily find ways to take such steps as may be ne- 
cessary to form a Democratic-Republican Party (to 
revive a name that was in use in this country a century 
ago), which would represent the predominant liber- 
alism of our people. Over against such a progressive 
liberal party there would naturally be organized a dis- 
tinctly radical party to which should go all those who 
now call themselves Democrats or Republicans, but 
who are in reality neither.” 


Attempting to capitalize this great wave of discontent and 
class-awakening of the workers, various liberals led by La Fol. 
lette and Borah have also joined, not as definitely of course, in 
the talk of organizing a third party. In a speech delivered at 


332 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Spokane, Washington, on November 2, Senator Borah spoke to 
the following effect: : 

“A man is totally blind to political conditions in 
this country who does not understand that there is prac- 
tically a political revolution on. The people are going 
to have relief, and if they cannot get it through the old 
parties they will get it thru a new party. 


“The situation in this country at present is quite 
different from what it was in 1912. The movement at 
that time was largely a personal movement, led by a 
man of tremendous personality; but the movement 
now is a people’s movement. It is a mass movement. 


It is not unakin to the ground swell which took place 
from 1852 to 1860....” 


As a result of the Election of 1922 such reactionaries as 
New, Beveridge, McCumber, Kellogg, Poindexter, Mondell, 
Wadsworth, Volstead and Coleman du Pont were sent to the 
political scrap-heap. The army of “]%me ducks” is now one 
long procession of repudiated Governors, defeated Senators, and 
rejected Congressmen. In the 1922 election practical, tangible 
issues were of greater importance than ever before. Personali- 
ties were given a seat farther backward. 


B. THE TREND TOWARD A LABOR PARTY. 


The brazenness characterizing the Government’s strikebreak- 
ing activities has given tremendous impetus to the movement for 
an independent party of the workers. Many Central Labor 
Councils have gone on record for a Labor Party and the intensi- 
fied activities for “non-partisan” participation on the part of 
Gompers and his aides-de-camp are in a large measure due to 
the desire on the part of the latter to stifle this movement. 

The reactionary leadership of the unions fears a Labor 
Party. They see in it an entering wedge for the force that will 
solidify the ranks of the workers as a class and sweep them out 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES 333 


of power. They see in a Labor Party a positive step towards 
marshalling the forces of the workers for a decisive battle against 
the capitalists. It is this that the reactionary leaders fear and 
hate most. 

Although the Conference for Progressive Political Action 
held in Cleveland on December 11 and 12, 1922, defeated the 
proposal for a Labor Party by a vote of 64-52 it is nevertheless 
a fact that the movement for an independent political party of 
the workers is today’greater than ever before. The proponents 
of the Labor Party were defeated by the superior organization of 
their opponents—the advocates of the policy of “reward your 
friends and punish your enemies’—a policy that has been in 
vogue for years, a policy that has brought the American workers 
hundreds of injunctions and indictments. The conservative 
union leaders in charge of the organization of this Conference 
were better prepared. For instance, they deliberately removed 
the Conference to Cleveland from Chicago in order to avoid the 
pro-Labor Party and amalgamation atmosphere of the latter 
city. At the Conference proper the advocates of the Labor 
Party were not as well organized as the “non-partisan” agents. 

It must also be noted that the delegates of the Socialist 
Party to this Conference did not work for a Labor Party. Run- 
ning true to form, this Party, when confronted with a situation 
calling for action, shelved its supposed aims, turned its apparent 
immediate: objectives: into the realm of the vague, distant, “ul- 
timate” goals—the safety valves so often employed by these 
“Socialist” leaders to misdirect the militant forces of the labor 
movement. In this way, the Socialist spokesmen succeeded in 
maintaining their positions of prestige and power in the inner- 
most fold of conservative trade union bureaucracy. Had the 
Socialists lined up for a Labor Party and fought aggressively for 
it, the Labor Party proposal would have carried despite the 
fact that representatives of local unions and the delegates of 


334 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


the Workers’ Party were kept out. At the Cleveland Confer- 
ence, this “Socialist” Party openly defended the trade union 
bureaucracy, and its leaders won for themselves the unenviable 
role of rendering lip service to the policy of independent work- 
ing-class political action and rendering yeoman service to the 
policy of dependent workers’ political action—dependent upon 
the Republican and Democratic Parties of the employing class. 

But the movement for a Labor Party has only been tem- 
pered at most. The Conference has left the. road open by grant- 
ing autonomy on this question to State Conferences. Better or- 
ganization on the part of the militant trade unionists alone will 
suffice to give life and power to this movement. 


Industrial Radicalization. 


A. THE GENERAL STRIKE RESOLUTION 


In the midst of the great strikes there was initiated by the 
Omaha (Nebraska) Central Labor Union on July 21, 1922, a 
movement for a General Strike. The resolution adopted by this 
labor body read in part: 


“Resolved that we, the Central Labor Union of 
Omaha, in regular session assembled this 21st day of 
July, 1922, call upon the Executive Council of the A. 
F. of L. to immediately set in motion the machinery 
which shall bring the full power of Labor to bear in 
one grand national protest against the slavery condi- 
tions that are being imposed upon us, and to call a na- 
tional strike at the earliest possible date in order that 
this warfare upon American homes may cease.”?) 


This resolution was introduced by a member of the organi- 
zation of militant trade unionists known as the Trade Union 
Educational League. By the time the Daugherty Injunction 


2) The Labor Herald, October 1922, page 15. 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES 335 


was issued, Samuel Gompers was compelled publicly to admit 
that he had received over 200 demands for a general strike of 
all trades in all sections of the country. Of course Gompers 
stifled the movement for more effective resistance to the on- 
slaughts of the employing class and its Government. But its 
effect could not be nullified. The widespread indorsement of 
this resolution was a monument to the increasing power of the 
left wing in the unions. 


B. DEFENDING THE COMMUNIST WORKERS. 


Equally significant is the enthusiastic, widespread help given 
by trade unions to the communist workers arrested at Bridge- 
man, Michigan. Typical of this response are the resolutions 
carried in support of the Labor Defense Council conducting 
the defense of these workers by the Chicago Federation of La- 
bor and the Minneapolis Trades and Labor Assembly. The re- 
solution of the latter body read in part: 


5 Sa Be it resolved by the Minneapolis Trade 
and Labor Assembly, that we hereby avail ourselves 
of the empty right that we thought we reserved to our- 
selves in the Constitution ‘to petition the Government 
for redress of grievances,’ and hereby petition the Pres- 
ident of the United States, and the Department of Jus- 
tice to assign William J. Burns and his able coterie of 
thugs to the prosecution of the financial pirates and 
profiteers who during and since the war have so en- 
riched themselves at the expense of the starving work- 
ers and farmers, and to relieve W. Z. Foster, W. F. 
Dunne and other representatives of the workers of the 
pleasure of their unscrupulous attentions.” 


Such action is in striking contrast to the attitude maintained 
by organized labor to the “Red Raids” of 1920. Then, many 
organizations even joined Palmer’s thugs and gunmen in the 


336 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


condemnation of the militant workers. The above conduct and 
resolutions are indicative of the growing class-consciousness of 
the workingmen. 


C. THE PRINTERS AND THE MAINTENANCE OF WAY 
WORKERS CONVENTIONS. 


Another sign of the extensive spread of militant doctrines 
amongst the trade unions was manifested at the Convention of 
the International Typographical Union held at Atlantic City, 
September 11-15, 1922. 


The sentiment for amalgamation was very strong amongst 
the delegates. Effective measures towards this end were taken 
by the Convention. The Union also rescinded its law calling 
for the expulsion of any member who had been convicted under 
the Espionage Act, passed a resolution demanding the release 
of all class war prisoners, and decided to participate in the 
Cleveland Conference for Progressive Political action. 


And the action taken by the Convention of the United 
Brotherhood of Way Employees and Railway Shop Laborers held 
in Detroit, Michigan, in October 1922 was even more radical. 
Amalgamation swept the conference. The reactionaries who 
had betrayed the workers to the strikebreaking Railroad Labor 
Board for a two-cents an hour increase of wages were com- 
pletely overwhelmed. Resolution Number 52 for Amalgama- 
tion read as follows: 


“Resolved, that we favor the amalgamation of the 
sixteen standard railroad unions into one organization 
covering the entire railroad industry, and that we call 
upon our General Officers to take the necessary steps 
so that a joint convention of all these organizations 
(or as many as possible) can be assembled to put this 
amalgamation into effect.” 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES 337 


This resolution was unanimously adopted. Describing the 
Convention, the well-known trade union magazine, the Labor 


Herald, said: 


“All of this slick politics by the machine com- 
pletely destroyed the confidence of the rank and file 
delegates. They demonstrated the repudiation of the 
reactionaries when the elections took place. Grable 
was defeated by an amalgamation advocate, F. J. FI- 
jozdal, by a majority of 3,813 votes. When it was 
apparent that the machine was broken, its backers be- 
gan to run for cover. A progressive candidate, Elmer 
EK. Millegan, defeated the machine secretary by 54,000 
votes. Salaries of officials were cut one-third, and the 
number of vice-presidents reduced from 14 to 5. Head- 
quarters are to be moved from Detroit to St. Louis. 
Every action calculated to root out the machine for 
all time that the delegates could think of was adopted 
with enthusiasm. The rout was complete. Never be- 
fore was such an overwhelming victory achieved for 
amalgamation, and for progress generally.’®) 


D. THE SWEEP OF AMALGAMATION. 


_ Perhaps the most telling advance made by the left wing in 
the trade union movement is the sweep of amalgamation. The 
movement for the amalgamation of the impotent craft unions 
into powerful, fighting industrial organizations is today more 
intensively and extensively developed than ever before. The 
outstanding feature of this movement for industrial unionism is 
its practical, realistic expression. This radical movement of 
today is free from the suicidal tactics of secession, dualism, and 
organizational irresponsibility. As advocated by the Trade Union 
Educational League, amalgamation, the turning of the impotent 
craft unions into fighting industrial unions, is at once a theory 
and a practice—a theory based on the actual political, economic, 


3) The Labor Herald, November 1922 page IC 


338 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


and industrial conditions at hand and a practice taking into 
cognizance the specific conditions attendant to the application 
of the plan in each particular instance, in each particular indus- 
try. Amalgamation as propagated and worked for by the fight- 
ing trade unionists under the leadership of the Trade Union Edu- 
cational League is a method of action and not a cut and dried 
formula; not a dogma stifling activity, but a plan of and an 
inspiration to intensified activity. 

It is this practical, responsible, realistic character of the 
present amalgamation movement that makes its sweep all the 
‘more encouraging and inspiringly significant to the develop- 
ment of working class power and freedom. Already the fol- 
lowing State Federations of Labor have endorsed the amalga- 
mation proposal of the Chicago Federation of Labor which was 
bitterly denounced by the rock-ribbed reactionary Gompers. 
These States are Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Ne- 
vada, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and 
Wisconsin. Among the International Unions endorsing it are 
the International Association of Fire Fighters and the Main- 
tenance of Way Men. Even amongst the independent unions 
this move fer amalgamation has made great gains. In Octo- 
ber 1922, there was held in Boston a convention of seven inde- 
pendent unions of shoe workers to organize the Amalgamated 
Shoe Workers. 

It is, however, amongst the railway workers who hold the 
arteries of the industrial system in their grip that amalgamation 
has taken the most tangible form and made the greatest head- 
way. Says Wm. Z. Foster, Secretary of the Trade Union Edu- 
cational League and one of the ablest and leading advocates of 
amalgamation regarding the recent amalgamation conference 
of railway workers: 


“This National Railroad Amalgamation Confer- 
ence, so long looked forward to by militants in all in- 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES 339 


dustries, has come and gone. It was a tremendous 

success. On December 9-10, in Chicago, some 400 de- 

legates, of all trades and callings, including smaller de- 
legations from the Four Brotherhoods, from all over 

the United States and Canada, came together to con- 

sider the proposition of amalgamation. They indorsed 

it 100 per cent, declaring wholeheartedly for one union 

for the entire railroad industry. Then, organizing a 

committee of 100, members of which will be located 

in all the principal railroad centers, they prepared to 

launch a great campaign to bring the many organiza- 

tions together. Local committees will be formed, 
great mass meetings held, the circulation of the Amal- 
gamation Advocate built up, referendums on amalga- 
mation initiated, special conventions held, and every 
other possible device used to wake up the rank and 

file and to actually fuse the many organizations to- 

gether into one powerful body. It is safe to say that 

after this historic conference the realization of indus- 
trial unionism on the railroads, the dream of militants 

for a generation now looms as a prospect of the near 

future.” 

The conservative and reactionary trade union bureaucrats 
are fighting this move. Stone of the Engineers, Johnston of 
the Machinists, who has often posed as an amalgamation advo- 
cate, the notorious Lee of the Railroad Trainmen, and the other 
standpat leaders have turned down the call of the Maintenance 
of Way Men for a joint convention to take steps toward amal- 
gamating the standard railway unions and have bitterly attacked 
the above Conference. 

This Chicago Conference of Railway workers is particularly 
indicative of the practical, systematic, responsible methods pur- 
sued by the militants of today. It is totally different from the 
feverish, though enthusiastic and sincere, impractical, inefficient 
methods so often resorted to in the past by the rebels in the la- 


4) The Labor Herald, January 1923, page 3. 


340 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


bor movement. For this reason its future is most promising. 
This conference was totally devoid of dual union sentiment, con- 
sisted of 95 per cent of Americans who were anxious to win over 
the foreign-born workers, and was completely representative 
despite the fact that thousands of shopmen were still on strike 
and could not afford to send delegates. 


E. THE TRADE UNION EDUCATIONAL LEAGUE CONFERENCE. 


And last, but not least, as a measure of the rising tide of 
the militant spirit of the workers, is the First National Confer- 
ence of the Trade Union Educational League held in Chicago 
in August 1922. The significance of this conference to the Amer- 
ican labor movement has been thus well described by S. T. Ham- 
mersmark of the Farmer Labor Party: 


“Occurring at a time of crisis in the labor move- 
ment, and crystallizing a great body of sentiment and 
understanding, developed in the main within the past 
year and a half, it was a historic and significant gath- 
ering. It closed the door on the past generation of 
mistaken and disastrous tactics of the rebel trade uni- 
onists, and opened the way to the new policies of ag- 
gressive, constructive organization of the working class 
forces, the establishment of the militant elements within 
the mass unions. The Conference marked the begin- 
ning of a new period in the labor movement.”®? 


The Trade Union Educational League has in the short pe- 
riod of its existence proved itself to be a powerful rallying 
center for the militants in the trade union movement. It has 
proved itself to be the veritable steel rod, the veritable main- 
spring of the whole left wing in the trade unions of America. 


_ 


5) Ibid, October 1922, page 24. 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES 341 


The Capitalists Unite. 


_ But the employers have not been asleep during the last 
year of bitter class war. They are preparing for new struggles. 
They are solidifying their ranks for a new onslaught. They are 
reforming their lines of battle. The employing class is re- 
organizing its army of attack in the following fashion. 


The trend toward the concentration of ownership and the 
centralization of the control of capital is moving on at an ac- 
celerated pace. This is a step towards enhancing the offensive 
power of the army of the employing class and is manifested in 
the increasing number of mergers during the recent months. 


The capitalists are also taking steps to improve the de- 
fensive powers of their army. They are partly diffusing the 
stock of their corporations in order to increase the number in- 
terested in their properties and thus, in time of a strike, be able 
more effectively to mobilize public opinion against the workers. 
The recent flood of stock dividends has this, as well the evasion 
of tax payments, for its aim. The latest efforts of the United 
States Steel Corporation and the Standard Oil Company to in- 
terest their employees in purchasing stock is another indica- 
tion of this policy. 

Finally, the Government, whose object is to centralize and 
direct the whole attack of the employing class against the work- 
ers, is also busily forging new chains for the workers and de- 
vising new methods of dividing the workers. 


A. THE GIGANTIC MERGERS. 


Amalgamation is also the cry of the class-conscious em- 
ployers. They see in amalgamation the means of intensifying 
exploitation, raising the cost of living, and easily and decisively 
crushing the workers. 


342 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Anent this tendency toward amalgamation by the employing 
interests, the following enditorial comment of the New York 
Globe is especially enlightening: ; 


“Future historians will undoubtedly refer to the 
administration of President Harding as the golden age 
of business consolidation in the United States. Nothing 
approximating recent development has ever been seen. 
First, the railroads were told that they might com- 
bine, and then one after another amalgamations in 
steel, in the packing industry, and now finally in cop- 
per have been announced. 

““,..A significant aspect of this merger (copper) 
is the fact that the public will provide funds to make 
it possible. Chairman Ryan remarked in his announce- 
ment that thru the proposed bond issue the Anaconda 
Company would acquire control of the Chile Corpora- 
tion without cost to the stockholders. The issuance 
of $150,000,000 in bonds will distribute the real owner- 
ship very widely. . .”) 


The object of these mergers is obvious. The more con- 
centrated the ownership and the more centralized the control 
of capital is the more easily can wages be lowered and prices 
raised, the longer can the employers hold out in strikes, the 
more equipped are they to control the press and Government 
officials, and the more ruthless they can be towards the workers. 

It would appear to some that this diffusion—or apparent 
manifestation of a tendency towards a wider distribution of 
capital—of stock, disproves the theory that ownership of ca- 
pital is being more and more concentrated. This is not so at 
all. The great capitalists are constantly increasing the volume 
of their industrial and financial shares, are steadily increasing 
the size of their interests in industries and banks, despite the fact 
that single, individual or small blocks of shares (for that is all 


6) New York Globe, January 17, 1923. 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES 343 


the workers or petty business men can purchase) may be sold 
to an increasing number. 

This so-called diffusion does not, in the least, give the 
wide mass of stockholders the slightest control. They are 
scattered thruout the country. They have not sufficiently large 
interests to afford them the ability and the opportunity to par- 
ticipate in the formulation of the corporation’s policies. The 
control of the capital remains highly concentrated. 

But the so-called diffusion or spreading out of ownership 
does afford a great advantage, commonly not recognized, to the 
employing class. The increase in the number of stockholders 
does not lessen the control of the capitalists. On the contrary, 
it strengthens this control. Though the great mass of stock- 
holders have no effective voice in the formulation of policies 
they serve very effectively as a screen for the policies that are 
determined for them. Having a tangible interest in the cor- 
poration, in the form of shares, the stockholders are more sus- 
ceptible of being won over to the decisions of the corporations 
during strikes. They are interested in advancing the value of 
their shares. They tend to favor all policies aiming at the en- 
hancement of the profits and the consequent increase of the size 
of their dividends. 

Having this control of the policies of a corporation, the big 
capitalists thru a grouping of several large blocks of stock or 
thru an outright majority stock ownership, make the decisions 
for the great number of small, scattered shareholders, and thus 
more easily mould public opinion against the workers. Even 
many workingmen, owning a few dollars worth of stock in a 
corporation are unsympathetic or sometimes hostile to the la- 
borers striking against wage cuts, increased hours and unsatis- 
factory conditions. Thus, working class solidarity is under- 
mined, the worker is given a more favorable opportunity to de- 
velop a pro-capitalist psychology though not a capitalist in: 


344, THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


come, and the corporation becomes a momentous force in the 
life of the country. The history of the Steel Trust bears this 
out very clearly. This Trust grew up as one of the “good” 
trusts. It did not crush its opponents. It bought them out. It 
did not rend them to pieces. It did not devour them. The Steel 
Trust just swallowed them. And, more than that, the Steel 
Trust interested many of its workers in stock propositions and 
pursued the policy of making the savings of the people of me- 
dium and insufficient income get together and serve the inter- 
ests of the powerful capitalists—the policy of the so-called dif- 
fusion of stock. 

In the present sweep of amalgamation by the capitalists this 
policy is being pursued with increasing frequency. In the $50,- 
000,000 theatrical merger and in the mammoth merger of the 
Anaconda and Chile Copper Companies bonds will be issued, 
the public will be given the “opportunity” to finance the amal- 
gamation of the employers, and thus public opinion will be won 
over to the new plunder-bunds. In case of strikes against these 
corporations the great number of insignificantly small share- 
holders will be lined up against the strikers who, as it will be 
very skilfully told to them, are making it impossible for their 
hard-earned few dollars to net them the rewards of their years 
of frugality, honesty, intelligence, and what not virtues called 
into being by the official apologists of the profit-mad employers. 

Besides, by garnering the small savings of thousands of 
workers, either directly or indirectly thru banks and brokers, 
the huge corporations secure more capital to work with. For 
the workers this gobbling up of their meagre savings by the big 
industrial magnates simply means that the bosses will be able to 
use this additional capital for further exploitation. Thus do the 
workers increase their employers’ power and profits. 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES 345 


Table Showing Recent Huge Mergers—Huge Amalgamations 
by the Employers. 


Number of Dollars Amalgamating, or 
Companies Merging Value of Total Assets of the 
Amalgamated Corporations 
1. Affiliated Retail Stores—Five Department Stores of 
Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Wheeling, 
Ry APE ar nan bE) ye 3 nitty oi be ule 4,a:'o:a'ai@ was $20,000,000 
2. American Smelting Co. Merger—To have five out of 
nine directors of new corporation consisting of these 
firms: 
Alvarado Mining Company, Hidalgo Mining Co. 
San Juanico Co. and the control of the Parral & 
Durango Railroad. 


Anaconda-Chile Copper merger .............s.e00: 80,000,000 
4, Associated Motor Industries—Combining nine manu- 
facturing concerns in seven states. 


a nasour a Co. and Morris & Cos): sc... coe cates 571,941,513 


6. Calumet & Hecla and Subsidiaries—The Ahmeek, Al- 
quez, Centennial Copper, and Osceola Consolidated 
Mining Co. Also acquire the necessary manufac- 
turing facilities to insure the consumption of large 
output. In this merger the total liquid and semi- 
liquid assets of the Calumet-Hecla interests alone 


Sat 


EMIRR eer, toe ho ts etic dasa tarew daar. 6 37,700,000 
7. Industrial Bank and the Manufacturers’ Trust Co. : 
merger. Total deposits of the two banks are.... 65,000,000 
8. Erlanger-Shubert-Dillingham Theatrical Merger...... 50,000,000 


9. Mutual Oil Co. takes over Merritt Oil Co., which is 

controlled by the Standard Oil Co. of Indiana thru 

its subsidiary the Midwest Refining Co. The Mu- 

taal. alone’ is ‘capitalized «at....05... 00. vei eevee es 30,000,000 
10. Producers & Refiners Corporation on December 11, 

1922, took over several smaller independents. 
11. Van Sweringen interests of Cleveland buy the Chesa- 

peake & Ohio Railway thus giving them control of 

4,280 miles from Omaha, St. Louis, Chicago to the 

Eastern Coast. | 


346 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Many others can be added to the above. The Interstate 
Commerce Commission is now considering a plan of consolidat- 
ing the railways into 19 great systems. Also, on November 28, 
1922, it was publicly announced that Wm. M. Wood, President 
of the American Woolen Co., controlling 40 per cent of the 
woolen business of the country, was elected Director General and 
Chairman of the Consolidated Textile Co. operating over 700,000 
spindles. Together these firms do an annual business of $25,- 
000,000. Mr. Wood definitely advised the public not to view 
this arrangement as an amalgamation of the woolen and cotton 
interests of the country. 

Even the garment industry which, comparatively speaking, 
is not concentrated or centralized, is making rapid strides to- 
wards unification. On January 11, 1923, the Associated Dress 
Industries of America, representing the largest dress manufac- 
turing companies in the United States, appointed David N. Mo- 
sessohn as “dictator of the industry” with powers similar to 
those exercised by Will H. Hays in the motion picture industry. 
And now the American Telephone and Telegraph Company is or- 
ganizing a billion dollar corporation—the biggest company in 
the world. | 

B. STOCK-DIVIDENDS DECLARED EN MASSE. 


Thus did Senator Brookhart of Iowa explain his resolution 
on stock-dividends on the floor of the United States Senate on 
January 16, 1923: 


“The Federal Trade Commission advises me that 
328 companies declared in 1922 stock-dividends 
amounting to more than $2,149,000,000, in some in- 
stances the dividends being more than 1,000 per cent, 
in one instance 2,300 per cent. For instance, the At- 
lantic Refining Co. declared a dividend of 900 per 
cent, or $45,000,000; the Great Northern Paper Com- 
pany one of 200 per cent, or $31,689,150; the Gulf 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES 347 


Oil Corporation, 200 per cent, or $80,000,000; the Na- 
tional Biscuit Company, 75 per cent, or $21,920,000, 
while the Standard Oil Company and its subsidi- 
aries declared more than $700,000,000 worth of stock- 
dividends, with a percentage as high as 400. There 
are others as the list made public by me some days 
ago shows. 

“IT am trying to ascertain by this resolution, from 
the Secretary of the Treasury, whether or not these ac- 
cumulations were all made during the fiscal year 1922; 
if not, then to ascertain whether or not the Secretary 
has called upon any of these companies to show cause 
why they should not be cited for additional taxes un- 
der provisions of the Revenue Act of 1921.” 


This tidal wave of stock dividends has come in the wake of 
the Supreme Court decisions, in the case of Eisner v. Macomber, 
252 U. S. 189, by a vote of five to four. Said the Court: “This, 
however (declaration of stock-dividend) is merely that such 
dividends are not ‘income’ within the meaning of the law.” This 
decision is costing the Government a loss of at least $600,000,000 
a year in decreased tax income. The above list is incomplete, 
and the totals are much higher than the sums found by the 
Federal Trade Commission to date. 

While the workers were piling up enormous dividends for 
their employers, wages were being slashed, hours were being 
lengthened, unions were being smashed, and unspeakable con- 
ditions were being imposed on the workers. While the Gov- 
ernment was permitting these employers thus to defraud it of 
hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes, it was sending troops, 
issuing injunctions, and using its full financial powers against 
the workers striking against indecent conditions of employment 
and starvation wages. For the workers to revolt against such 
tyranny was high treason to the Government; for the capitalists 
to pile up gigantic profits thru such ruthless exploitation was, 
in the words of the Supreme Court, “merely bookkeeping that 


348 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


does not affect the aggregate assets of a corporation or its out- 
standing liabilities.” 

This flood of dividends is an additional source of conflict 
between the employing class and the working class. The prim- 
ary motive of the stock-dividend campaign is not evasion of 
taxation, great an advantage as this is. The present law, Sec- 
tion 220 of the Act, according to Mr. Mark Eisner, formerly 
Collector of Internal Revenue for the Third District of New 
York, is 


“So ridiculously worded....that a man might 
place all his dividend-paying stocks in a holding com- 
pany and allow the dividends to accumulate without 
paying a dollar tax to the Government.” 


But Congress may proceed to change the law and then this 
avenue of escape from taxation will be lost. The primary ad- 
vantage in the issuance of stock dividends is that it affords the 
employers a means of “diffusing” the stock and thus gives them 
a more advantageous position against workingmen who may 
strike. As has been pointed out previously the increase of the 
number of stockholders does not entail for the powerful em- 
ployers a loss of control of the corporation. It only affords 
them better means of mobilizing public opinion against the 
workingmen asking for improved conditions and tends to pit 
the workers employed in the struck industry against the workers 
engaged in other industries who happen to own a paltry few 
shares of stock in the struck corporation. Thru the pressure 
of this more effective and swifter rallying of public opinion— 
largely the opinion of those having some tangible economic in- 
terest in the property—the Government is afforded a more plau- 
sible excuse for stepping in and breaking a strike in the name 
of the public and in behalf of the lofty cause of crushing those 
guilty of the high crime of the “restraint of trade.” 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES 349 


Said Mr. Max Rolnick, former Deputy Collector of Internal 
Revenue: 


“Thru a wider distribution of the stock it is easier 
for them to maintain their control, even though they 
dispose of a large part of their former holdings. The 
new holders of the shares would probably be more 
widely scattered, and on that account, any organiza- 
tion among them for control of the company would be 
a very hard task, to say the least.”7) 


And Mr. Perley Morse, head of Perley Morse & Co., ac- 
countants and a recognized expert on financial matters posed the 
significance of the stock dividend flood in these words: 


“In my opinion, the reason why a great many of 

the large companies are issuing stock-dividends is be- 

cause they expect sooner or later a tax upon their sur: 

plus; further, because they are liable to obtain less 
criticism from the public by paying smaller dividends 
upon larger capital than larger dividends upon a small- 

er capital.”®) 

The issuance of stock dividends therefore enables the cor- 
porations to plead their cases of poverty more eloquently. Their 
press can then fill acres of paper showing the small and insuf- 
ficient rates of profit on the heavy investments. __ 

But the issuance of stock dividends is more than a means of 
evading taxes, is more than a means of mobilizing public opinion 
against striking workingmen. The issuance of stock dividends 
is a notice to the workers that the company is preparing for new 
profits. Apropos of this feature one of the leading banks de- 
clared: 


“A stock dividend is usually a preparatory step to 
a larger distribution of earnings in the future.’®? 


7) Magazine of Wall Street, November 11, 1922, page 15. 
8) New York World, December 6, 1922. 
9) National City Bank Bulletin, December 1922, page 12, 


3950 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


And in another declaration on stock dividends the National 
City Bank went on to make it even clearer that the issuance of 
stock dividends is a preparation for more profits: 

“The value of the new stock to the stockholders 

is in the expectation that real dividends out of the earn- 

ings of the corporation will be paid upon it. 

“A stock distribution, while not a real dividend, 
and therefore not taxable in itself, is a preliminary step 

to a real dividend, which is taxable.’”°) 

Here we have it. The employing class is serving notice on 
the workers that they will have to produce more profits. The 
issuance of stock dividends is at once a measure of defense and 
offense for the new onslaught against the workers. It is a 
measure of defense in the sense of being an inestimable aid for 
the mobilization of public sentiment against the workers; and 
it is an offensive measure in the sense that it is a preparation 
for more profits. It was the huge wage cuts, the lengthened 
hours of labor, the deteriorating conditions imposed upon the 
workers that enabled the employers to pile up such fabulous 
surpluses out of which stock dividends could be declared. Now 
this surplus has been turned into active capital of the corpora- 
tions. Capital must have the reward of its virtues—profits. 
The continuity of the flow of dividends must then be intensified. 
'n the actual life of capital this means more profits to the em- 
ployers and less wages to the workers. It means more war in 
industry. Translated into everyday occurrences, intensified ex- 
ploitation means an intensified class war between the employers 
and the workingmen. 


C. THE GOVERNMENT IS PREPARING. 


The Government is actively preparing to defend the inter- 
ests of the employing class against the workers. In his mes- 


10) Ibid, January 1923, page 12. 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES 351 


sage of December 8, 1922, President Harding openly called for 
legislation to prevent the workers from striking on the railways. 


He said: 


“Public interest demands that ample power shall 
be conferred upon the labor tribunal, whether it is 
the present Board or the suggested substitute, to re- 
quire its rulings to be accepted by both parties to a 
disputed question.” 


In the new strikebreaking machinery proposed by the Presi- 
dent the workers will be denied even the present minority repre- 
sentation. No labor members will be on the new Board for the 
President recommended that “the decisions should be made by an 
impartial tribunal.” In his opinion “only the public group of 
three is free to function in unbiased decisions.” It would ap- 
pear that the President has borrowed some “melifluous phrase- 
ology” from the public strikebreaking agent Mr. Hooper, Chair- 
man of the present Railroad Labor Board. 

Another indication of the Government’s policy of enmity 
to the workers and of the strikebreaking role to be played by it 
in the future, as in the past, is seen in the appointment of Pierce 
Butler to the Supreme Court. Mr. Butler won his spurs as a 
lawyer defending the interests of the Chicago, St. Paul, Min- 
neapolis Railroad and as a defender of the notorious Twin City 
traction interests against the working masses of these cities of 
Minnesota. Mr. Butler is not even equipped with the formal 
claims to legal culture as some of his colleagues on the bench 
are, His appointment is a positive sign of the degree of ef- 
frontery and brazenness, of the ugly frankness with which the 
Government is proceeding to crush the workers. 


New Struggles Ahead. 


New struggles are ahead. The railway strike has not been 
settled. The textile settlement is only a truce, and the workers 


352 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


are already showing restiveness. The miners’ strike resulted 
only in an armistice. 

The present mergers and the stock dividend issues are fer- 
tile fields for new struggles. The capitalists are preparing. 
The Government is preparing. New chains are being forged 
to bind the workers. An attempt will again be made to divide 
the workers along national lines by instituting such methods of 
labor importation as the contract system and the establishment 
of labor-receiving stations in the foreign ports in order to as- 
sure the powerful employers the importation of the “right kind” 
of workers and the right size of profits. And the wage-cutting 
campaign is not over yet as can be seen from the following re- 
marks of the National City Bank: 

“It would be premature to say that the downward 
readjustment of wages has come to an end; it will not 
come to an end until a fairly balanced state of com- 
pensation exists thruout all industry, including agri- 
culture, but it has been halted by the revival of indus- 
try and the immigration law. uy 
Nor are the employers satisfied with the length of the work- 

ing hours prevailing today. On this problem the National City 
Bank Bulletin continues: 

“One of the reasons for the slow recovery from 
the effects of the war undoubtedly is the shortening of 
the hours of labor and the increase in the cost of manu- 
factured and mineral products and of transportation 
which has resulted from this policy. . 

“The theory that as much work would be done in 
eight hours as in nine or ten has not been established 
by the experience of the industries generally. The 
pace of industry is generally fixed by machinery, 
which as a rule moves at the same pace in an eight 
hour day as in the longer periods.”??) 


11) National City Bank Bulletin, November 1922, page 5. 
12) Ibid, page 7. 


THE MEANING OF THE STRUGGLES 393 


What shall the workers do to meet the new onslaught? How 
can they prepare to resist the combined attack of the employers 
and their strikebreaking Government? How can the workers 
once and for all put an end to the exploitation and oppression 
they are now suffering at the hands of the employing class? 
Where lies the road to working class freedom? These are per- 
tinent questions for every worker. 

The workers must answer these questions and answer them 
soon. In the answer to these questions lies the future of the 
working class of America. 


CHAPTER XIV. 
CONCLUSION 


A Renewed Period of Depression is Coming. 


W* are on the eve of new and gigantic struggles between the 

employing class and the working class. The present pe- 
riod of so-called prosperity is only a flurry. It is a temporary 
condition. It is only a spurt in prosperity. The economic 
conditions are highly unsettled and depression with its embit- 
tered labor struggles is on the way. This is the opinion of many 
of our leading financial experts. 

Mr. J. H. Tregoe, Executive Manager of the National Associ- 
ation of Credit Men, has made a survey of business conditions 
for 32,000 wholesale, banking, and manufacturing members of 
the association. His findings read in part: 


“I discovered a confused sentiment, in some places 
bordering on the pessimistic, and others making a broad 
swing in the opposite direction. We must be watch- 
ful against committing errors just now. Therefore, 
I say emphatically that we are not bordering on a boom. 
There is nothing in the situation at home or abroad 
that would suggest one.) 


And in an address before the Chicago Association of Com- 
merce on November 15, 1922, John Moody, noted authority on 
economics and finance, said: 


“Tt seems a foregone conclusion that the immedi- 
ate future of American business is not indicative of a 





1) New York Times, October 9, 1922. 
. 354 


CONCLUSION 355 


boom; reaction from the present revival is not many 
months ahead of us, and while the first few months of 
1923 may be relatively prosperous, we may run into 
a renewed period of deflation before the end of 1923. 

“The Europe that is pictured to us in the public 
prints is a fiction. We are told that Germany can be 
made to pay 120,000,000,000 gold marks indemnity 
within thirty years. This is fiction. We are told 
France, Italy, Belgium and others can be made to pay 
us $6,000,000,000 worth at 444 per cent within twenty- 
five years. This is fiction. 

“We are told that the $4,000,000,000 Great Britain 
has contracted to repay us will be an unmixed blessing 
to the American people, will enable us to reduce our 
own taxes and retire our own domestic debt with greater 
rapidity. This is all fiction. : 

“Mr. Hoover talks of the ease with which the Allies 
can pay their debts and at the same time wax rich and 
prosperous again, but Mr. Hoover is talking fiction. 

“People who have no credit can do no business. 

“What may reasonably happen in 1923 in the se- 
curity markets is a sharp culmination of the recent 
long rise in stock prices in the early part of the year; 
a moderate strain on the money market during the win- 
ter and Spring, followed by pronounced ease in inter- 
est rates later on, with bond prices holding for a while, 
then sharply weakening, and finally setting in for a re- 
newed rise which may be of long duration. 

“The only possibility to change this picture would 
be unexpectedly favorable developments, but they are 
not in sight.” 


In so far as European conditions are concerned they are 
growing worse, according to the National City Bank: 


“The poverty and lack of purchasing power of 
Europe is a constant factor in our markets and a con- 
tinuing menace to our prosperity. No matter how fa- 
vorable our domestic conditions may appear, we can- 
not safely disregard the fact that agriculture must have 


356 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


an outlet in Europe for the usual quantity of its pro- 

ducts.’”2) 

How important a factor Europe is in the stability of our 
economic conditions, even without consideration of our manu- 
factured exports losing a market, is made clear by the following 
illuminating estimate of conditions made by the Economic De- 
partment of the University of Idaho: 


“The farmer’s prices in the last analysis are set 
by foreign demand and foreign ability to pay for his 
products. If the farmer proposes to limit himself to 
feeding the people of the United States he might as 
well go out of business. Over 55 per cent of our ex- 
ports are agricultural products and raw materials. 
About 75 per cent of our exports of agricultural pro- 
ducts and raw materials go to Europe and about 25 
per cent to the rest of the world. Pe 


These are the factors making for an unfavorable economic 
outlook. America cannot hold herself aloof from the world. 
The American economic structure is an integral part of the world 
economic system. ‘Today America holds two-fifths of the world’s 
stock of gold; produces more than 50 per cent of the world’s 
iron and steel; 45 per cent of its grain; sixty per cent of its 
copper and 54 per cent of its cotton. Unavoidably the calami- 
ties of Europe become the calamities of America. It is only a 
matter of time. Capitalism is international. 


The Farmers in Dire Straits. 


In their next attack on the workers the employers are going 
to pose as the saviors of the farmers. They will thus try to di- 
vide the ranks of the toiling masses. They will point to the des- 


2) National City Bank Bulletin, January 1923, page 1. 
3) The Idaho Economic Bulletin, November 1922, published by the 
Department of Economics of the University of Idaho. 


CONCLUSION 307 


perate condition of the mass of farmers not in order to help 
them but in order to blame the workers for this sad plight of 
the agricultural masses. They will cry for lower wages in or- 
der to “equalize” the purchasing power of all sections of the pop- 
ulation. They will attempt to mislead the farmers with ithe 
fraud that their salvation lies in a further reduction of wages 
and deterioration of the working conditions of the industrial la- 
borers. 


It is this desperate condition in which the farmers find 
themselves that makes it imperative for the working farmers 
and city workers to unite against their common enemy—the ca- 
pitalist exploiters. 


The employers are preparing to utilize this situation as an 
excuse for an intensified attack on the workers. On October 
24, 1922, agents of the Packers, the International Harvester 
Trust Company, and the United States Chamber of Commerce 
gathered in Chicago to “help” the farmers. The plan there for- 
mulated was a campaign to be waged by chambers of commerce, 
trade associations, banks, and railway committees to win over 
the farmers to the side of big business. 


There can be no sound economic conditions, even from the 
point of view of the employing class, when the farmers are so 
heavily oppressed. This is the third consecutive year in which 
the farmers have received prices for their produce below the 
cost of production to them. How serious this situation is can 
be seen from the fact that agriculture is the biggest industry in 
the country. It is from eight to ten times the size of its nearest 
rival. Thus the workers must carefully and deliberately prepare 
to meet the problems arising out of this situation—a situation 
fraught with the greatest dangers to the workers unless they are 
on guard. 


358 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Unity of Workers against Unity of Employers. 

The workers must pit unity against unity. The workers 
must solidify their ranks in order to meet the coming attack. 
They must do more than that. They must prepare to end the 
rule of the employing class and supplant it with the rule of the 
working class. The workers are the only ones who can save 
society today from an irretrievable catastrophe. 

In formulating a policy of practical, militant action, the 
workers must first of all avoid the mistakes of their past. They 
must repudiate their policy of dependent political action whether 
it takes the form of outright, unadulterated Republican or De- 
mocratic servitude or the form of camouflaged servitude as in 
the case of “non-partisan” political action—the pet theory and 
criminal practice of the reactionary labor bureaucracy. The 
workers must forthwith take steps to create a machine for effect- 
ive independent working class political action—a Labor Party. 

Then, the workers must also revitalize their existing unions. 
They must amalgamate their backward, inefficient, crippled craft 
organizations into modern, efficient, fighting industrial unions; 
into organizations that will be in line with the development 
‘of capitalist industry itself. These two policies supplement each 
other. 


The Need for Amalgamation. 


The best argument for amalgamation is found in the con- 
ditions of industry itself. Industry today is highly concen- 
trated and centralized. There is a powerful united front of 
billions of dollars against the underpaid, exploited workingmen. 
The workers must meet the mergers of the capitalists with the 
mergers of their own organizations. To the workers the pro- 
blem is amalgamation or annihilation. There is no earthly use 
in fulminating against the cruel, bloodthirsty trusts and the deals 
between the captain of one industry and the baron of another. 


CONCLUSION 359 


There is no outside, heavenly moral question attached to that. 
It is a matter of industrial development that evolves its own 
morals and ethical codes as time goes on. American Rail- 
roads, official organ of the American Association of Railway 
Executives, the one Big Union of Railroad Capitalists, has stated 
this very clearly in the following: 

“Large industrial enterprises require large com- 
mitments of capital; a great railroad system could not 
possibly be financed by a small country bank, or by a 
great number of small banks directly without incur- 
ring heavy expenses. 

“It is natural and necessary therefore for large in- 
dustries and large banks to have dealings with one 
another. . | .7°4) 

These dealings then develop into financial marriages in 
which legitimacy is an insignificant matter. When the workers 
strike against the coal operators, they strike against the steel 
magnates, the railway kings, the banking lords, the shipping 
knights, and the other titled heads of the kingdom of capital. 
The cleavage between finance capital and industrial capital in 
America was healed more than a decade ago. Thru a highly 
intricate system of interlocking directorates, the men of finance 
and industry have become one. It is a united enemy employing 
powerfully amalgamated organizations that is fighting the work- 
ers. And there can be only one effective answer the workers can 
give to their enemy. The workers must talk to their employers 
in the only language they can understand—power. Otherwise 
they are doomed. Says Roger W. Babson, one of the leading 
financial advisers to the employing class: 

“So long as the unions are divided as they are, 
and particularly when the strike starts with those of 


least consequence and with those whose places are 
easiest to fill, the country need not worry. 


4) American Railroads, May, 1922, page 2. 


360 


volume or pitch be. 


this 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


“In other words, W. Z. Foster is right when he 
says that what the unions of the United States must do, 
if they are to become effective fighting bodies, is to get 
away from the trade union form of organization and 
to organize industrially. Mr. Gompers’ attempt to 
answer Foster by besmirching his character does not 
touch this fundamental fact. The only great unions 
which have put up a winning fight in the past two years 
have been industrial unions.”>) 


The workers must not be deluded by the loud talk of some 
of their conservative and reactionary leaders, no matter what the 
Particular care must be taken against the 
so-called, self-styled revolutionary leaders of the type that in- 
fest the Socialist Party. These leaders often have “the voice of 
Jacob but the hand of Esau.” 
parcel of the reactionary Gompers machine. 
duct at the last convention of the American Federation of Labor 


is obvious. Said Wm. Z. Foster: 


“But bad as was the showing of the railroads-miner 
opposition, that of the Socialist minority was even 
worse. ‘The time was when the Socialists in the Federa- 
tion waged a determined battle against Gompersism, 
but now, with the exception of a few irreconcilables, 
they seem entirely domesticated. They went along 
with the Gompers machine 100 per cent, voting for all 
the administration candidates and measures, and against 
everything in any way radical or progressive. They 
voted against trade with Russia and industrial unionism. 
Their leader was Benjamin Schlesinger, President of 
the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, 
who has gone over to Gompers boots and baggage. For 
his treason he was elected delegate to the British Trade 
Union Congress.”®) 


5) Roger W. Babson’s Confidential Bulletin, Number L. 195. 
6) Labor Herald, August, 1922, page 10—Wm. Z. Foster. 


They have become part and 
From their con- 


CONCLUSION 361 


The workers must immediately rally to the amalgamation 
campaign waged by such bona-fide militant trade union bodies 
as the Trade Union Educational League. They must work for 
un-hyphenated, undiluted, genuine amalgamation of the archaic 
craft unions into fighting industrial unions. Never again must 
there be another situation where nine railway unions are at 
work while seven are on strike as occurred in 1922. 


The Need for a Labor Party. 


The class struggle between the workers and their employers 
is a political struggle. Hundreds of thousands, millions of Amer- 
ican workers feel the truth of this, but do not know it yet. When- 
ever the workers strike, whenever the workers resist the onslaught 
of their enemy, the Government comes to the rescue of the em- 
ploying class and centralizes and organizes its attack against the 
struggling workingmen. This tendency is marching forward 
at an ever-accelerating pace. The Government is a tool in the 
hands of the employers with which to oppress the workers and 
perpetuate the existing order of exploitation and oppression. 
The Government is a strikebreaking agency. This is the role 
played by the Government in the recent strike wave—particularly 
in the textile, mine, and railway strikes. 

What has been the answer of Gompers and his lieutenants 
to the strikebreaking activities of the Government? When the 
Attorney General Daugherty charged Gompers with the “high 
crime” of mere criticism of the Government, the President of 
the American Federation of Labor gave vent to fury culminating 
in the following confession of bankruptcy. 


“The Attorney General’s statement cannot be sus- 


tained by the record.””) 


7) American Federation of Labor News Letter, September 23, 1922. 


362 THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


It is this attitude that is responsible for the suicidal non- 
partisan policy advocated by the conservative and reactionary 
leaders of the labor unions. In its years of practice this policy has 
meant indorsing Governor Ammons of Colorado under whose 
administration the Ludlow massacre was organized; indorsing 
Hiram Johnson who dared not vote against Newberry, and who 
recommended the appointment of Wm. J. Burns, the notorious 
labor-baiter whom he defended at the hearings on the im- 
peachment of Daugherty; for the railway unions it has meant 
the indorsement of Fess and for the A. F. of L. the indorsement 
of Pomerene in Ohio; for the rewarded friends of labor in Con- 
gress it is likely to mean the choice of Representative Cooper of 
Wisconsin, who applauded the strikebreaking policy of Harding 
against the railway workers, as leader of their group in the 
House. But for the workers—this policy has meant within a 
brief period of less than two years; a myriad of injunctions, 
picketing being declared illegal, the Child Labor Law, weak as 
it was, being held “unconstitutional,” and the unions being de- 
clared liable under the law for the loss incurred by an em- 
ployer during a strike. 

The criminal stupidity of this policy has been more clearly 
seen and openly admitted by men not in the labor movement, 
than by some of the conservatives in the labor movement. Said 
New York State Supreme Court Justice John Ford on January 
19, 1923: 


“No impartial student of the subject can doubt 
that the courts are partial to accumulated wealth; that 
they are on the side of the powerful employer and 
against the employees, and that they are daily, thru 
judge-made law oppressing the poor and lowly in the 
interest of amassed capital. 

“The lawyers in turn are the employees of wealthy 
men and large corporations. The Bar Association of 
this city presumes to tell the people who should and 


CONCLUSION 363 


should not be their judges. That association, like 
every other similar organization, is controlled by a 
handful of its members, the so-called leaders of the 
bar. Without exceptions these leaders are men retained 
by the great corporations to protect them in their spe- 
cial privileges and power and to exact tribute from the 
public. Is it any wonder that judges indorsed by such 
men are disposed to declare laws unconstitutional and 
grant ex-parte injunctions against labor organizations?” 


ro 


It is this group that mainly supplies the “good” men whom 
the workers are called upon to vote for and put their faith in 
as representatives of labor. Both parties are owned and con- 
trolled by the employing class. The film between the Demo- 
crats and the Republicans has disappeared. 

The trade unions of America must form a Labor Party to- 
tally independent of and opposed to the existing political par- 
ties of the employers. This Party should be organized on a 
federative basis permitting all working class and working farm- 
ers’ groups joining the right to maintain their organizational 
identity, but unifying them for the common political struggle 
against the one enemy—the employing class. This Party must 
have a working class program; it must be unreservedly com- 
mitted to the interests of the working class and the working 
farmers. 

The organization of a Labor Party is the first step that the 
workers must take towards wresting political power from their 
oppressors, the employing class. The workers must substitute 
their own Government for the present Government of the em- 
ploying class. They must supplant the present dictatorship 
of the capitalists with a Government of the workers, by the 
workers and for the workers. The workers are the only ones 
who can save society today from the ruin that is threatening to 
overtake it. The working class is the only class that can do this 
because the workers are the only ones whose interests are not 


364. THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


based on the exploitation and oppression of wide masses of the 
population. 

Only after the working class has won complete political 
power can it proceed to end the existing capitalist system of ex- 
ploitation. Only then can the workers proceed to organize in- 
dustry socially. 

We have seen that in its very structure the American gov- 
ernmental system is unfitted to serve as an organ of complete 
working class liberation. The American workers, as has been 
shown by their own experiences and by the experiences of the 
workingmen of other countries, will have to build their own 
State machinery for this purpose. The basis of this State ma- 
chinery will be the organizations of the city and rural laboring 
masses. 

The fight for working class freedom is a fight for freedom 
of all society. Today it is a fight for the very existence of so- 
ciety. Upon the working class rests the future of civilization. 
The workers must not falter in meeting this task. The immediate 
situation demands the unification of the fighting forces of labor 
against the employing class. This can be achieved only thru 
the amalgamation of the craft into industrial unions and the or- 
ganization of an independent working class party embracing 
all the oppressed agricultural and industrial laboring masses 
under the leadership of the workers. These are the immediate 
steps that must be taken by the workers in order to organize for 
the attainment of complete freedom from all exploitation and 
oppression—the Communist society. 


INDEX 


A 


Adams, W. D., 54, 55 
Advertising—extent and use of, 265, 


Amalgamated Textile Workers, 56, 
62, 63, 68, 70 

Amalgamation Movement, The, 336, 
337-340 

American Bankers’ Association, 331 

American Cotton Manufacturers’ 
Association, 54, 55 

American Federated Engineering 
Society, 38 

American Federation of Labor — 
effect of World War on, 9; loss 
of membership in depression, 35 

American Federation of Textile 
Operatives, 70, 71 

American Legion, 30, 35, 266-267 

American Mining Congress, 253-254 

American, New York, 278 

American Steel Foundries v. Tri- 
City Central Trades, 206-208 

American Telephone and Telegraph 
Co., 31, 346 

Amoskeag Textile Mills, 52, 67 

Argonaut (Cal.) Mine Disaster, 132 

Army—confidential order against 
labor organizations, 234-235; en- 
forcing Daugherty injunction, 
222; extent of use in textile, mine 
and railway strikes, 233; first 
extensive use in labor struggles, 
233-234; free speech and, 244- 
245; mine strike and, 237-239; 
railway strike and, 169, 239-246; 
steel strike 1919 and, 12; testing 
fitness for strike duty, 235-236; 
textile strike and, 237; violence, 
how prevented by, 243° 

Army and Navy Journal, 236 


365 


Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe 
Railroad—denies acts of cruelty 
attributed to strikers by Harding 
and Daugherty, 301-304 


B 


Babson, Roger W.—on craft union- 
ism, 359-360 

Baker, Judge Wm. E., 187 

Barr, Wm. H., 17-18 

Bird, J. Philip, 18 

Bituminous Coal Commission, 77 

Bland, Oscar E. (Rep.), 86 

Bonnett, Clarence E., 20, 25 

Borah, Wm. E. (Sen.), 104, 320, 332 


Bradley, J. G., advocates using 
rifle, 254 

Brandeis, Louis, 187 

Brookhart, Smith W. (Sen.), 346- 


347 

Brophy, John, 87 

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engin- 
eers, 145, 216 

Browne, Ed. E. (Rep.), 256 

Bryce, James, 310 

Burns, Wm. J., 67, 335, 362 

Butler, Nicholas Murray, 331 

Butler, Pierce, 351 


C - ae 


Cabinet System, American, 322-325 

Camlin, John H., 120-121 

Campaign Contributors Republican 
Party 1922, 326-327 

Capital, The Topeka (Kan.), 305 

Capper, Arthur, (Sen.), 29, 188, 
305 

Carnegie Foundation for Advance- 
ment Teaching, 192-193 


366 


Catholic Welfare Council, National, 
19, 39 

Central Competitive Field Agree- 
ment, 77, 79 

Chamber of Commerce, United 
States—in Open Shop drive, 17 

Checks and balances, 316-318 

Cheney, C. E., 24 

Chicago Federation of Labor, 335 

Child Labor Decisions of U. S. 
Supreme Court, 211-213 

Children—education of in mining 
regions, 89 

Chile Copper Co., 249-250 

Christian Science Monitor, 91 

Civil Liberties Union, 96 

Clark, Evans, 165 

Clayton Act, 211, 228-229 

Cliftonville march of miners, 128- 
131 

Coal Association, National, 83, 84, 
124 

Coal, 1922 Fact Finding Commis- 
sion, 107-108 

Coal industry, concentration in, 85 

Coal profits, 30, 82-83, 88-89 

Collier’s Weekly—trailway strike in- 
vestigation, 181 

Commercial, The 
289, 294 

Commercial, The Buffalo, 292 

Commercial, The Cleveland, 293 

Committee System, Congressional, 
318-323 

Commons, John R., 20, 233-234 

Communists — Michigan raid on 
workers, 173, 220; labor and, 220- 
221, 335-336 

Conboy, Sara A., 291-292 


(Me.), 


Bangor 


Consolidated Textile Corporation, 
55 
Constitution, American — history, 


310-311; rigidity, 312-314 
Coolidge, C., (Vice-Pres.), 319 
Cooper, (Rep.), 362 
Coronado Decision, 209-211 
Corporations’ Auxiliary Co., 24 
Court system, American, 314-316 
Cox, Channing H. (Gov.), 67, 169 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Coyle, Albert F., 301 

Credit Men, National Association of, 
72, 354 

Crompton Mills, 65 

Cuyler, T. DeWitt, 
226, 269 


156-157, 174, 


D 


Daily Gazette, Little Rock, 299 

Daugherty, Harry M., 172, 220-221, 
me 227, 300, 305, 321-323, 324, 

if 

Davis, James J., 46, 77-78 

Davis, Jerome C., 52, 53, 59 

Democratic Party, 327, 331 

Denby, Edwin, 324 

Denison, Edward E., (Rep.), 116 

Depression, The Great—effect on 
American commerce, 27; effect 
on ex-soldiers, 35-36; effect on 
farmers, 36-37; effect on profits 
of corporations, 31-32; effect on 
trade unions, 35; effect on wages, 
33, 34, 38; new period coming, 
354-356 

Dispatch, Pittsburgh, 278 

Dorsey, John, 80, 111-112 

Draper, Ernest G., 19 

Dunne, Wm. F., 335 

Duplex Printing Co. v. Deering et al, 
203-205 

Du Pont, C. (Sen.), 320 


E 


Edgerton, J. E., 248 

Edwards, (Gov.), 103 

Election results 1922, 330-331 

Employers’ Associations—attack so- 
cial reform organizations, 263-264; 
breaking railroad strike, 257-261; 
controlling the Church, 262; con- 
trolling the Government, 266; con- 
trolling the Press, 265; purpose 
of, 248-249 

Employers’ 


Association, 
Trades, 25 


Building 


INDEX 


Employers’ Association of Pitts- 
burgh, 253 

Employers of Indianapolis Associa- 
ted, 18, 119 

Epstein, Abraham, 42-43 

Erectors’ Association, National, 18, 
24 

Esch-Cummins Act, 139, 141, 319 

Ex-soldiers—post-war conditions of, 


36 


F 


Fabricators’ Association, National, 
25 

Fall, Albert B., 324 

Fargo Forum, 280 

Farmers—“Big Business” conference 
to win them over, 357; decline in 
their purchasing power, 36; de- 
cline in value of their crops, 36- 
37; indebtedness, 37; present con- 
ditions of, 356-357 

Farmer-Labor Union News, 243 

Farming out in railway repairs, 141 

Farrington, Frank, 80, 111, 286-287 

Fayette County betrayal, 109-111 

Federal Council of Churches, 38, 
86, 91 

Federal Trade Commission, 82, 83- 
84, 189, 346, 347 

Fitzgerald, E. H., 178 

Fljozdal, F. J., 337 

Ford, Henry, 103 

Ford, John, 362-363 

Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act, 319 

Foster, Wm. Z., 177, 180, 270, 284, 
335, 338, 360 

Founders’ Association, National, 18 

Frear, James A., (Rep.), 194 

Freeman, W. E., 243 

Frelinghuysen, Jos. S. (Sen.), 84 

Frey, John P., 255-256 


G 


Gardiner, A. G., 274 
Garment Workers’ Union, Interna- 
tional Ladies, 45 


367 


Gary, E. H—in 1920 Open Shop 
drive, 17; on labor, unions,, 19-20 

Geological Survey, U. S., 75 

Globe, New York, 58, 342 

Globe-Democrat, St. Louis, 289 

Glossbrenner, A. M., 250-251 

Gompers, Samuel, 26, 47, 361 

Government, American, 308-310, 311- 
ole 

Grable, 146, 178 

Grain Grading Laws, 187-188 

Green, E. F., 54 

Groesbeck, (Gov.), 134 

Gross, Harold J., 66 

Guggenheim, Daniel, 250 


H 


Hamilton, Alexander, 312 

Hammond, John H., 327 

Hamrock, Pat, 270 

Hapgood, Powers, 99-100 

Harbord, James G., 246 

Harding, Warren G.—anti-strike leg- 
islation, 350-351; bankers’ hold 
on, 269; cabinet, 324-325; coal 
profiteering permitted by, 102; 
Herrin revenge sought by, 121- 
122; in mine strike, 100-101; 
in railroad strike, 173-175, 302; 
unemployment conference, 28-29 

Harrison, Benj., 191 

Hays, Arthur G., 96 

Hays, Will H., 346 


‘Herald, New York, 278, 297 


Herald, Washington, 76 

Herrin—coroner’s jury report, 115; 
defense counsel statement, 126- 
127; effect on non-union coal pro- 
duction, 93; indictments, 123; | 
special grand jury report, 124 

Hirschfield, David, 74, 88 

Hocking Valley (Ohio), 91 

Holder, Arthur E., 135 

Holmes, Oliver W., 195 

Hooper, Ben. W., 168-169 

syed Herbert H., 76, 104, 105, 


368 


Hoover, W. H., 270 

Howard, S., 23 

Huddleston, Geo., 76, 139, 319, 325 
Hughes, Chas. E., 324 

Hunter, Samuel N., 117 

Hustis, James H., 169 


I 


Idaho, University of, 356 

Illinois Chamber of Commerce, 119- 
121.123 

Illinois Farmer Labor Party, 125: 
126 

Industrial Conference Board, Na- 
tional report on wage declines in 
industries, 33, 34 

Industrial Relations Committee de- 
finition of Open Shop, 19 

Industrial Traffic League, 257 

Industrial Workers of the World, 70 

Injunctions—Daugherty, provisions 
of, 222-223; Daugherty, ravages 
of, 224; first American use of, 
215; meaning of, 217-219 

Interchurch World Movement, 40 

Interstate Commerce Commission, 
141, 151, 152, 155, 267-268, 276- 
277 

Interstate Joint Conference (min- 
ers’), 77 

Tron League, 25 


J 

Jacobs Co.—Report on wage de- 
clines, 33-34 

Jenckes Spinning Co., 62, 64, 66 

Jewell, Bert M., 156-157, 195, 226 

Joliet (Illinois) —military scene in 
railway strike, 242 

Journal, Dallas, 289 

Eee of Commerce, Chicago, 288- 
89 

Journal of Commerce, New York, 
31 


K 


Keller, Oscar E. (Rep.), 321-323 
Kellogg, (Sen.), 246 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


Kerr, A. W., 126 
Knight, B. B. & R. Co., 57, 65 
Ku Klux Klan, 249, 260-261 


L 


Labor (Washington), 124, 257, 278- 
280 

Labor Age, 93 

Labor Bureau, Inc., 56 

Labor Defense Council, 335  - 

Labor Herald (Chicago), 71, 111, 
113, 337 

Labor Journal, 169-170 

Labor Party—need for, 361; 
toward, 332-334 

La Follette, Robert M. (Sen.), 319, 
320 

Landis, Judge K. M., 196 

Lane, Franklin K., 154, 271 

Lauck, Jett W., 49 

see and Labor (N. Y.), 205, 230, 
ol 

League for Industrial Heits, 18, 
205, 251 

Lee, Wm. G., 178, 284, 339 

Legere, Ben., 70 

Lewis, John Be Ti iL Shee 

Literary Digest, 289-290 

Lobbies, number of in Washington, 
D. C., 246 

Lockwood Joint Legislative Commit- 
tee (N. Y.), 24, 189-190, 195 

Locomotive Engineers’ Journal, 220- 
221, 301, 304 

Locomotive Firemen and Engine- 

men’s J ournal, 97 

Loom Fixers’ Association, National, 
a0, 2k 

Loree, L. F., 148 


trend 


M 


Macnider, Hanford, 35, 266-267 

Madison, James, 312 

Manly, Basil, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 87 

Manufacturers’ Association, Lllinois, 
18, 257 


INDEX 


Manufacturers’ Association, Indiana, 
251, 260 

Manufacturers’ Association, Nation- 
al, 18, 248 

Maurer, Charles, 253 

Maynard Coal Co. case, 83, 189 

McAdoo, Wm. G., 30, 82 

McCray, (Gov.), 102 

McCumber, (Sen.), 319, 320 

McMahon, Thomas F., 62-63, 65, 70 

Meeker, Royal, 41-42 

Mellon, Andrew W., 194-324 

Mergers, recent, 341-346 

Merritt, Walter Gordon, 205 

Metal Trades’ Association, 18 

Meyer, Eugene, 37, 326 

Miners—employment periods of, 86, 
88; oppression of, 96, 97, 98-100; 
productivity, 91; wages, 86, 87, 
88, 91; working and living con- 
ditions, 90, 91, 92 


Miners’ strike, 1919—congressional 


declaration on, 15; Palmer de- 
clares it illegal, 14; Wilson de- 
clares it illegal, 13 

Miners’ strike, 1922—army used in, 
237-239; betrayal by bureaucrats, 
109-112; Cliftonville march, 128- 
131; extent of, 81; profiteering in, 
102-105; settlement, terms of, 
105-107; significance of, 108; 
women, role of in, 93-94 

Minimum Wage Law, District of 
Columbia, 186 

Minneapolis Trades and Labor As- 
sembly, resolution against perse- 
cution of Communist workers, 335 

Missouri and North Arkansas Rail- 
road terrorizes workers in Har- 
ison, Ark., 257-258 

Molders’ Journal, International, 255 

Money Trust, Congressional investi- 
gation of, 47-49 

Moody, John, 354-355 

Morrison, (Gov.), rejects offer of 
troops in mine strike, 239 

Morse, Perley, 349 

Moses, Geo. H., ‘(Sen.), 59 

Munsey, Frank, 331 


369 


N 


National City Bank (N. Y.), 179, 
349, 352, 355 

Navy, U. S.—classifying men for 
railway strikebreaking, 239 

Newlands Act, 228 

New Majority, 221 

News, Grand Rapids, 286 

Newton, Walter H., (Rep.), 84 

New York Central Railroad, 141-142 

New York, Ontario and Western 
Railroad, 277-278 

New York State—wage cuts, report 
on by Industrial Commission, 33 

Non-Partisan League, 187 

Non-partisan political action, fraud 
of, 362-363 

Norris, Geo. W., (Sen.), 193, 270- 
271 


O 
Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, 286, 
293 
Older, Fremont, 135 
One Big Union, 70, 71 
Omaha (Neb.) Central Labor 


Union, 334 

Open Shop Association, American 
Employers’, 21 

Open Shop Association, National, 
18, 22 

Open Shop Drive, 1920—extent of, 
17; purpose of, 19; results of, 26 

Open Shoppers at work—boycott, 
use of, 24; press and church, use 
of, 23; secrecy, 20; tyranny in 
Marion, Ohio, 255-256; under- 
cover men, use of, 23 


E 


Pacific Textile Mills, profits 1921, 
51-52 

Packing House workers’ strike 1921, 
45 


Pennsylvania Coal & Coke Corpora- 
tion, 78-79, 109 


370 


Pennsylvania Railroad, 141, 155, 195 


Pershing, John J., 240 

Pettit, Elmer O., 91 

Phipps, (Sen.), 320 

Post, Chicago Evening, 288 

Post, New York Evening, 283 

Powers, John H., 50 

Press—control of in England, 274- 
275; Daugherty on role of, 305- 
306; employing class served by, 
275-281; Herrin propaganda, 285- 
290; investigation of by Labor, 
278-280; mine and railway strikes 
and, 292-305; need for a labor 
press, 306; North Dakota 1922 
Senatorial contest and, 280; tex- 
tile strike and, 290-292 

Progressive political action, Cleve- 
land conference for, 333-334, 336 

Public Ledger, Philadelphia, 278, 
295 


R 


Railway Clerk, 329-330 

Railway Executives, American Asso- 
ciation of, 142, 157, 174, 227, 269, 
359 

Railway Labor Board, U. S.—class 
nature of board, 145; decisions or- 
dering wage cuts, 141-144; loss 
by workers through wage cuts, 
144-145; Pennsylvania Railroad 
decisions, 26, 195-196; wage cuts 
and minority members, 156; 
strikebreaking order of July 3, 166 

Railways in the United States — 
dividends and interest payments 
1916-1920, 147; extent of free 
land grants, 136; financial prac- 
tices and methods of, 137; mile- 
age, 134; operating expenses pad- 
ded, 140; wages and working con- 
ditions, 149-155 

Railway strike, 1922—bankers secret 
conference and, 175; effect on 
service, 160-165; extent of, 146; 
government’s strike bill, 171; re- 
sults of, 177-182; settlements, 173- 


THE GOVERNMENT—STRIKEBREAKER 


176; strikebreakers described, 
166; troops used in, 169, 239- 
246; “violence” in, 301-304; 


women in, 159 
Rea, Samuel, 155 
“Red” raids in 1920, 16, 41 
Republican Party campaign con- 
tributors 1922, 326-327 
Revieu; of Reviews, 282-283 
Ricketts, Edward D., (Rep.), 90-91 
Ritchie, Albert C. (Gov.)—rejects 
Harding’s offer of troops in mine 
strike 238-239 
Rockefeller, John D., 326-327 
Rolnick, Max, 348 
Rotary Clubs, purpose of, 259-260 


Ss 


San Souci, Emery J. (Gov.), 67 

Sargent, Noel, 282 

Schwab, Charles M., 250 

Scimitar, Memphis, 208 

Seamen’s Union, International, 9, 35 

Searles, Ellis, 95, 102 

Sentinel, Milwaukee, 285 

Sherman Service, Inc., 23 

Shields, John K. (Sen.), 185 

Shipping Board, U. S.—strikebreak- 
ing in mine strike 1922, 94, 113 

Short, Wallace M., 248-249 

Shortridge (Sen.), 320 

Smith, Adam, 310 

Smith, A. H., 155 

Socialist Party, 333-334 

Southern I]linois Coal Company, 116 

Spangler (Pa.) Mine Disaster, ipa 

Sproule ‘(Gov.), 102 

Standards of living, Ametieain 41-44 

Star, Marion, 285 


“Star, Indianapolis, 286 


Stock diffusion, meaning of, 343-344 

Stock dividends, 346-350 

Stout, Wesley W., 58 

Strikes—general, resolution for, -334- 
335; readjustment 1921, 44-46; 
United States from 1916-1917, 10 

Sun, New York, 278, 283, 294 


INDEX 


th 


TaffVale decision, 242 

Taft, William H., 39, 203, 206, 216 

Taylor, Thomas, 30 

Textile strike, 1922—army used in, 
237; press, 290-292 

Textile workers—wages north and 
south, 54; living conditions, 58 

Thomas, John J., 62 

Thomas, R. Y. (Rep.), 97 

Thompson, Herman Q. (Rep.), 232 

Times, The New York, 50, 56, 57, 
59, 61, 240, 278, 281, 282, 292, 293 

Times, Visalia (Cal.), 287 

Trade Union Educational League, 
71, 73, 173, 334, 338, 340, 361 

Trade Unions—effect of world war 


on, 9 
Tregoe, J. H., 72, 354 
Tribune, Chicago, 126, 242, 278, 298 
Tribune, New York, 288 
Truax v. Corrigan, 208-209 
Typographical Union, International, 
44-45, 336 


U 


Unemployment, extent of 1921, 28 
United Brotherhood of Maintenance 
of Way Employees, 9, 35, 336 

United Business Service, 181 

United Mine Workers of America, 
77, 80, 111 

United Mine Workers’ Journal, 95 

United States Chamber of Com- 
merce, 17, 259, 271-272 

United States Steel Corporation con- 
trol of coal fields, 79, 85 

United States Supreme Court, 187, 
188, 200-203 

United Textile Workers of America, 
62, 70, 71, 291 

Untermyer, Samuel, 190-191, 266 


371 


W 


Wade, Martin J., 307 

Wages—decline by industries dur- 
ing depression, 33, 34, 38; loss by 
workers through Railway Labor 
Board decisions, 144-145; Manly, 
Basil, investigation of, 39, 40, 41; 
purchasing power of union, since 
1907, 41; textile workers north 
and south, 54 

Wall Street Journal, 148, 179 

Wallace, Henry C., 36, 275, 324. 

Walsh, Frank P., 149, 150 

War Labor Board, 9, 10 

Warne, Frank Julian, 136-137, 138, 
147, 148.0 151) 194.275) 270, 2204 

Warren, M. S. (Sen.), 320 

Waste in Industry, 38 

Watkins, Thomas H., 78, 109 

Watson, “Tom” (Sen.), 28, 227 

Weeks, John W.—cabinet activity, 
324; prepares to use army against 
railway strikers, 240-244 

Western Maryland Railroad, 186-187 

Wharton, A. O., 142-143 

White, John P., 111 

Wilkerson, J. H., 171, 199, 200, 226, 
EAi. ZOU) ath 

Williams, Whiting, 163, 181 

Wilson, Woodrow—American consti- 
tution, opinion of, 313; declares 
miners’ 1919 strike illegal, 13 

Wisconsin — industrial commission 
reports on wage cuts, 33 

Workers International Industrial 
Union, 70 

Workers Party of America, 334 

World, New York, 97, 241, 244-245; 
286-287 

World War — bank profits in, 30; 
coal profits in, 30, 82-83; govern- 
ment labor policy during, 10; sur- 
pluses piled up during by cor- 
porations, 29; profiteering during, 
30; trade unions, effect on, 9 








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